


Continuation

by Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Series: Kindling [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, Pining, Road Trips, Slow Burn, Smut, cute baby stuff, everything gets easier if you're not trying to parent your frog-eatin' wizard bean on your own, hookup to friends to lovers?, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 42,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22408624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: In which Din considers his identity, Yala speculates about Mandalorian pick-up lines, the baby finally gets to ride that Mudhorn toy, the fourth member of the Clan is a 200 kilo chunk of dried Bantha meat, and nobody kisses until at least chapter 8
Relationships: Baby Yoda & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin/Some damn happiness for once, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Kindling [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584163
Comments: 437
Kudos: 668





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... do you ever have that thing where you just furiously write scenes that come to mind and then you're 20k in and you go 'Oh, THAT's what this story is about'? 
> 
> Yeah.

"How did you find me?"

"I knew that you were here three years ago, and working for Stellar would be your most logical option. Not many other ships around here big enough to have an on-board clinic."

Yala nodded.

"I didn't know for sure until people tried to convince me you were not here."

She chuckled.

"I'm gonna need to talk to a bunch of people and put their minds at ease about this, aren't I?"

He nods. "I did.. raise some concerns. Please give my apologies to the lady at the shipping office."

"Sol? Yeah, she was pretty rattled. I'll tell her."

"Thank you. A lot of people here care about you. Or at least, about not letting a bounty hunter find you. Everybody I spoke to seemed dedicated in throwing me off your trail."

"Dedicated, but obviously not successful?"

It's not in his nature to brag, but she must see some of his pride in his body language, because she grins.

"How about this. I'm going to figure stuff out at Stellar this afternoon, and I'll stay in the guesthouse tonight, because I have been looking forward to a bath for weeks. Then in the morning I'll turn up here with my stuff, and we can see…" she handwaves vaguely around her, at the ship. "What wants doing."

Din honestly did not take in all of that, because the idea of a bath… the last time was on Sorgan, months ago. He has a sonic shower aboard, but a real bath…

"Would they rent out a room just so I can have a bath?" he glances at the kid, who is looking between them with huge, excited eyes. He loves water. "So we both can have a bath?"

"Oh!" Yala smiles. "That's easy, I have a room when I'm in port. Come to the guest house tonight, I'll have dinner with this little guy," she waggles her eyebrows at the kid, who chortles delightedly, "while you have a bath, then you bathe him, then you can take your dinner back to the ship. Or I guess you could eat in the bath if you wanted to be decadent, but that—"

She's still talking, but his mind is stuck on _Oh, that's easy._

Life has never been more complicated than since he pulled Ad'ika back out of the Imperials' hands. Nothing has been easy in the slightest, of late, and it sideswipes him to hear her lay this out so confidently, all in a way that accounts for him keeping to the Creed. An impossibility reduced to a casual evening plan.

"Yes. That sounds—yes."

He gives her a commlink before she leaves, so he can let her know when he'll be at the guesthouse. Given that the combined crews of the Stellar vessels will be in there tonight, it's probably a good idea if she has some notice to explain the situation before he comes in.

He can't stop himself from watching her walk away, long loose strides in her heavy boots, mass of curls doing its own thing. It's alarming, the way he's helplessly charmed by every part of her, the way her smile lights him up on the inside.

"What do you think?" he asks the kid, who has toddled over to where he's standing by the ramp. "She's going to come flying with us for a while."

Longer than a while, he hopes. Much longer.

They'll do something of a trial month, he figures. He'll stay in this general region, so that if she wants to step back off, it'll be simple enough to get her home. And after that month, they'll both have a better idea of what they're in for.

He has what's probably the most relaxing night since Sorgan. A long bath while knowing Ad'ika is in safe hands, then bathing the happily splashing kid, then walking back to his ship with the kid yawning contentedly in his arms. Good food, eaten with one hand while the other is lightly resting on the baby's little torso. He's got the bassinet turned away a little so there's no direct sight line, but the kid can hear him, and Din doesn't bother putting his helmet back on for the night.

He's not ready to take it off in front of the kid when he's awake, and given that Yala will shortly be living with them, perhaps it's better not to get either of them used to that anyway. Every time he starts to feel like he's taking too much risk, he reminds himself of Drijak's words: does he really believe that the people who wrote the Creed meant for babies to never see their _buir's_ faces? For a couple never to look into each other's eyes?

Din has never thought about the rules very much before. He spent most of his time on his own, and the people he did meet were the kind he would never have considered showing his face anyway.

He's always wanted so much to be a Mandalorian, to be truly part of his new culture and be accepted, that he's never really thought critically about the rules he was given.

Nevertheless, living aboard his small ship with two adults and a baby is going to take some adjusting. He's glad that, judging by her comment about curtains, Yala is already thinking about the practicalities of that too.

Yala turns up the next morning with a backpack and a big storage chest on a hover dolly. She's wearing dark glasses, and looks wan and more than slightly hungover.

"Had fun last night?" he asks with amusement from the hatchway.

"Mm-hmm," she nods. "Turns out of you sign off they don't let you go without a party."

She drops her things next to the ramp and looks up at him.

"So I feel _great_!" she says with false brightness. "Right, what's the plan?"

He can't help himself. "Depends, would you like to be hammering or welding?"

It's strange to not be able to see her eyes, but he's pretty sure she's giving him an 'are you fucking serious' kind of look that makes him grin.

They walk around the ship together to discuss what's needed, and settle on a fold-down bunk in the cargo bay for Yala, shielded by a curtain. Din is pretty sure he won't be taking on any large cargo any time soon, so it effectively turns the cargo bay into her space, which is fine by him. There'll be a curtain shielding the corner of his bed-nook too, so he has space to stand outside of it and change without her needing to carefully keep out of the compartiment.

"The whole careful timesharing thing is going to get tedious, so let's set it up to be as easy as possible," she says, measuring how much fabric is needed to screen off part of the fold-down table. Din can't help but wonder if she really is as accepting as she seems, or if she privately thinks this a bit ridiculous. He can't say that _he_ doesn't find the image of them eating together but separated by a curtain vaguely silly.

A lot of things that he never questioned while he's on his own seem a lot less normal now he's going to be living with others.

He'd known, on some abstract level, that the way his clan thought about helmets wasn't how all Mandalorians did. There were, and still are, those of the people who take off their helmet when they deem it necessary, or among intimates. Or even in public, when it suits them.

Din's tribe had considered them to be _dar'manda_ —no longer Mandalorian. Those who had given up their heritage, their identity and soul.

Drijak , the older Mandalorian he'd teamed up with for a few weeks had asked some questions Din hadn't been able to answer at the time.

Did he consider the other man _dar'manda_ because he took off his helmet, sometimes even for something as unnecessary as having a meal in a bar? Despite what Din had been taught, he didn't. It wasn't as clear cut when talking to the man. Drijak was unquestionably of the people. A lifetime of culture and heritage didn't just disappear because other living beings had seen his face.

He's been born into it though. Were the rules different for foundlings?

Or were they just different for Din Djarin, who'd needed so badly to be a Mandalorian to feel safe?

He appreciates Yala's willingness to work through her hangover, but when it becomes time for the hammering she keeps wincing, and he decides they're both better off if she heads into town to buy fabric.

"Do you think it'd be safe for Ad'ika in town?" he asks, eyeing the mudhorn tow toy that's been standing useless by the ramp. "I think he'd like to come for a ride."

"I mean, our Stellar overlords have this place pretty tightly under control?" she shrugs. "No Imperials here, and I'm not worried about crime." He wonders about that, because no place is without crime and there is that louche bar, but then he realises that she's well known to be in Stellar's employ. Nobody is likely to be brave or desperate enough to bring the wrath of the largest and most powerful employer down on themselves.

"Do you want me to bring him?"

Din glances over to where the kid has already toddled over to the mudhorn and is clambering up onto it with little grunts of effort. He shakes his head at himself, grinning. No changing his mind on that now.

"Take your commlink." And he'll put on his jetpack, so he really can be there in seconds if something happens.

"Well, little guy—" she says, slinging her emptied pack onto her bag, "—let's roll."

The kid squeals with joy when she picks up the pull handle and tows him along. The wheels of the mudhorn are set a little unevenly, so he bobs gently up and down as if the thing is cantering. The tips of his ears are lightly flapping along in the rhythm. Din follows them to stand in the bay door opening just so he can watch them walk down the street a little longer, and wishes he had a holo recorder. One day the kid is going to be a teenager. Din doesn't know if he'll even live to see it, but on the offchance, he ought to collect some adorable material to embarrass his kid with.

Or to give to the kid's kin, if he ever finds them. He doesn't like to think about that possibility.


	2. Chapter 2

It really shouldn't be a surprise that Yala comes fully prepared for life aboard. She has a disc drive full of holovids, a datapad with books, and a heavy suitcase-kit with medical supplies that can put a rural clinic to shame. She also comes with a wardrobe for all climates and a durasteel constitution when it comes to trying local food.

The three of them can live aboard with a surprising ease. The curtains help, though he prefers sitting with them as they eat and then eating on his own, rather than eating with them behind the curtain. It's just nice to have the choice, and not have to wait until they leave him alone.

They keep their sleeping times offset by a few hours, so that by the time Din has managed to get Ad'ika to sleep, Yala has usually already caught a couple of hours. He then puts the bassinet by her bed, and when the kid wakes a couple of hours later, Yala quietly takes care of him so that Din can sleep a few more hours.

At first he wakes up when she does, unused to hearing other people move around on his ship. It's still wonderful to be able to turn over again, knowing everything is in good hands. Sometimes he finds them playing in the cockpit when he gets up, sometimes they lounge in the hammock up there, Yala reading the kid a book, or taking another nap.

The first time that he wakes up completely of his own accord, just because his body is ready to wake, he feels so good it's like he's taken stims.

By mutual agreement they explore the nearby sectors, including some of the rural frontier planets Yala has already visited many times aboard the _Tranquility_. She calls it a 'shakedown cruise' which apparently means to work the kinks out of a ship and its crew.

She does some 'mediccing' in places where there is little access to a clinic. Din does the jobs that you can find in these kinds of places. He accompanies farmers to market to make sure they make it there and back safely with their wares and profits, deals with some robbers, tracks down a prisoner on the run, resolves a kidnapping.

It pays depressingly little in credits; more often they're offered whatever local product people can spare.

Din would probably have refused many of these. What does he want a whole prepared Bantha hide for, or a crate of outdated commlinks, or a side of cured Bantha meat they can't cook with aboard, or a barrel full of fruit he doesn't like, or couplings for a ship newer than his own?

Yala, with her eye for trading, encourages him to accept most of it. The cargo bay turns into a strange little warehouse that makes him shake his head in exasperation. She assures him she knows what she's doing, and the alternative is not getting paid at all, so he's willing to go with it.

Gradually useless things turn into slightly less useless things, and then sometimes into actually valuable things. The couplings get traded for a few spare plates of durasteel, which he is able to sell for a decent price on the next planet. The barrel of fruit become a couple of jars of a fruit preserve he does like, and three bottles of sweet wine. The crate of commlinks gets traded for fuel.

The enormous Bantha hide is traded on some frigid tundra where Yala and the kid shuffle around wearing every single piece of their clothing layered together. She negotiates for three beautifully handcrafted sweaters, one sized for each of them, and Ad'ika refuses to wear anything else for at least a week even though their next stop is a desert world. Din insists he won't wear his own and it disappears from where he left it. He's pretty sure Yala just stashed it somewhere, hoping to be proven right in her assertion that he'll want it at some point in the future. Or maybe she just plans to wear it over top of her own next time they're on an ice planet.

The cured meat stays stubbornly in the hold. It's so dry it resembles a large piece of wood. You can only cut it with a vibroblade and a lot of force, and to render a piece edible it needs to be stewed for at least a day to soften it. They don't have the facilities for that aboard, not that he's in any way keen to attempt to eat their way through 200 kilo of dried Bantha meat anyway.

"Well, I guess it's not about to go bad anytime soon," he shrugs, the both of them looking at the well-wrapped slab in the hold.

"He'll stay good for a year, we'll find the right place for him."

Oh. Yes. For some reason the Bantha meat is now called Varik. Din's life has certainly become a lot more colourful in the last half year.

Their tour of the nearby sectors isn't particularly productive in terms of credits or information, but they eat well, as Yala had predicted, and it gives them time to find the rhythms between the three of them.

He's realised he is too quiet sometimes; when conversations veer into serious subjects she struggles with his long silences. It makes more sense having observed her chatting with dozens of people in bars; she's constantly looking at faces, meeting people's eyes, and from him she gets a big blank. With no indication of how he feels she sometimes assumes displeasure, and he hates causing her anxiety. Din is trying to learn to be a more active part of conversations; hum more, be more expressive with his body language. It has the added advantage that he finds it easier to maintain a conversation with clients now; he only wants to put people off on purpose, not by accident. And now sometimes he has entire conversations with the kid too, and one day Din might even understand what they are about.

They both learn from each other about the kid. He knows far more about the little one's habits, abilities, and the specific way a small creature with strange abilities can get himself into trouble. She brings them children's games, holovids, and the realisation that Ad'ika can be content for hours if he's carried in a shawl against the body. Din isn't sure why he never thought of that, but then, it's not as if the unit he grew up with had any children in this stage of development. If any stage of human development compares to the kid in any case.

Yala drinks more than he's strictly comfortable with, though to be fair he isn't comfortable with more than a very occasional glass. Too many years of being the only one keeping an eye out for his safety, and now there's the baby to worry about.

Yala, used to the protective bulk of half a dozen crew members around her, not to mention the protection of the biggest company in the sector, likes to kick back at the end of a long day and have a glass or two. She gets a tipsy and chatty and usually not much more than that. He supposes that's what people do at Stellar, and he tries not to be disapproving of her way of relaxing just because it's different from his.

He doesn't _have_ a way of relaxing, she points out. Which. Point.

She was comfortable with the kid from the start, handing him with the ease of somebody used to babies and small children and accepting his strangeness with aplomb. As the days pass Din stops watching them together with the faint concern of 'Are they okay' and starts to just enjoy the sight of them. She's unselfconsciously silly with the kid, playful in a way Din doesn't know how to be.

This is how the kid is soon referred to as anything from 'kiddo' to 'Sproglet' and for some reason 'Bean'. It's also how he comes to learn a song that goes 'Have You Seen the Lean Green Mean Frog-Eating Machine,' which is catchier than he'd like it to be. It consistently makes the kid betray his hiding places with delighted giggling.

The first time he sees her _throw the kid into the air_ he nearly has a heart attack, flashing back to that asshole Mayfeld threatening to drop Ad'ika. But she catches him neatly, bouncing through her knees so there's no shock, and the kid is squealing with joy, making the noise he knows means 'Again!'

He watches her more than he probably should, from the privacy of his visor. She's just—such a welcome sight, her warmth of her brown eyes, the deep gold-brown tone her skin is taking on now that she's spending time on planets with sunlight, without Suarbi's constant overcast. Her ready smile, for the kid, for him. She has an ease when meeting new people. Chats with strangers at markets, in bars; she's interested in everybody, and people tend to tell her things.

A good part of the small-fry jobs he finds in these places come via her, either from random conversations with strangers, or from people who visit her makeshift clinic. Can he go to the next town to help search the endless maize fields for a missing child? He tries not to use the jetpack too much to avoid drawing attention, but it's extremely useful for this. Help save a hunter who got stuck in a narrow gorge? Sure. Accompany a woman who needs to retrieve her belongings from her abusive ex husband? Gladly.

Sometimes when he puts Ad'ika's bassinet by Yala's bunk after the kid's finally asleep, he'll watch her for a minute. At first she'd wake up from his presence, but now if he walks quietly enough she'll slumber on, burrowed in her blankets.

What would it be like, to climb in there with her, to slip under the blankets and curl himself around her, to rest his cheek against the soft cloth she wraps around her hair? To be sure of his welcome, to be expected, to belong there? Would she sleepily shift closer, seeking contact? He remembers in intimate detail what it felt like to have her relax against him and fervently wishes they could do that again, but they haven't found their way back to that, if they ever will.

Din isn't sure why not, though always having the kid around, and their offset sleeping times, probably don't help. And it wasn't like there was a clear initiation that first time six years ago, it sort of just.. happened. He's not sure how to encourage it to happen again without ruining everything if she's not into it.

This easy month also offers the opportunity to teach her to shoot and fly. If he's going to take riskier work while she looks after the kid, they need to be prepared for the worst case scenario. She needs to be able to defend the kid and herself. To take the ship and get the hell out of a situation with or without him..

She doesn't protest—there's really no argument against these lessons—but he knows that she loves the open way she can move around towns and markets in this sector, can talk to strangers, can accept invitations. He's seen her walk into people's houses without a second thought if they claimed to have a sick child in there.

She's going to have to be a lot more on her guard once they leave this sector, and he doesn't think it will come easily to her.

Sometimes it's easy to look at her sunshine-smiley good nature and think of her as naive, too trusting. As if the world has never taught her caution or fear. Then he remembers where he found her, a long-term captive of a very unsavoury man. Remembers her full-body flinch whenever Ghrikk Evoros had turned to her, and especially when he'd raised his voice.

He doesn't want her to go back to that, so he tries to find a balance between defensive skills and common sense. Let him be the paranoid one; she needs to know how to spot somebody tailing her, how to shake them, how to pick a defensive position where he could retrieve them, what gives her best chances of getting back to the ship—and if that fails, when to switch to damage control and trying for the best chance of survival if they _are_ captured.

Moff Gideon wants the child alive. Unless a bounty hunter has carbon freezing equipment, which isn't common, they might well see the point of keeping a caretaker with the child. Stars know that Din himself, had he encountered somebody like Yala protecting and caring for the kid when he first found him, would have brought her along. It would have made everything easier.

As for flying… she's got some experience standing watches, but takeoff and landing are new terrain, and the Razor Crest was built before some of the modern stabilising and vector-calculating innovations came into common use. The first attempts are… rough. Good thing he bought that hover bassinet for the kid or he would have gone bouncing all over the ship.

Din has heard of the concept of a holiday, a period of rest and recreation. The idea of taking one is entirely foreign; his life is not the type of life one can take a respite from. Perhaps the closest he came was on Sorgan.

This month though—perhaps this month is a holiday. Small jobs that don't carry much of a risk, a crew member aboard to help him care for the kid, welcoming places to visit. Nobody shoots at him. There's the press of urgency somewhere in his mind, because he needs to find what remains of his tribe, he needs to find the survivors and help them as much as he can.

But still. It's… nice.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to Tyellas and Baar-ur for stunt-reading!

They're both lying back on the Razor Crest's ramp in the dark, watching the stars and listening to the kid chasing frogs. This is still Drexel, where they've been for the past few days, but on another continent, far away from what civilisation this planet has. Yala had convinced him to spend the evening here; she'd introduced the idea of 'Swing night'.

_"On the Stellar ships there's a watch rotation every six days—and then that night we have Swing night. If you're dirtside, you go find a local bar or whatever entertainment is on offer. If you're in the sky, you watch holos or play games or make music or—whatever. You let down your hair. It's a little party. Sometimes there's dancing. It breaks up the tedium."_

To Din this whole month is already a break, but he's glad he put up minimal resistance, if only to see Yala in this bonelessly relaxed mood.

He's feeling pretty at ease himself. There isn't a sentient soul in a radius of 200 klicks, and the only lifeforms are the frogs hiding in the grass. The temperature is balmy; Yala has kicked off her boots and is wriggling her bare toes in the grass. It's about as safe as it gets. Din wouldn't have thought of setting down here just for an evening, but he has no regrets.

"Okay, but your people wear armour and helmets all the time, you've got to have some interesting expressions that refer to it," Yala says. "Can't be subtle if you can't see eachother's faces, Mandalorian flirting must have the smoothness of a sledgehammer, right?"

Yala is on her second cup of Suarbi wine, which mostly seems to make her loose and kind of expansive, relaxed from her usual self-contained poise. Also, chatty. Din has watered down fruit juice, but he thinks he might be getting a little secondhand buzz just from her mood. It's pitch dark, but the sensors in his helmet show her well enough, lounging with her head on a folded up cargo net.

"Look, if you don't tell me, I'm gonna make them up," she says earnestly. Her voice has eased into some accent he doesn't recognise, something with lilting rises and dips that make it sound almost lyrical. "And then your son will grow up believing that Mandalorians flirt by saying things like—" She toasts the sky with her cup. "'Baby, I'd let you undress me with a can opener.'

Din chokes a little, nearly snorting his swig of juice up through his nose. How does she come _up_ with these things? Wait, she's still going, just kind of musing aloud apparently.

"Hey baby, you, me and a big bottle of metal polish, what do you say?" she suggests. "Hmm, I feel like there's a lot of mileage in 'polishing'. Oh hey, do you have hinges in the armour? In the chest plate, right? Does anything need lubing?"

She doesn't wait for an answer.

"I just got a new bottle of oil, wanna go take care of each other? ...have a good… _maintenance session_?"

Din makes a disparaging noise.

"Yeah I agree, that's low effort. We can do better, right? Now I think of it, how _does_ a Mandalorian impress somebody they fancy? Polish up the helmet? Fresh paint job? Wait, is your armour extra cool because it's unpainted, or is this the equivalent of going into town in your scrubs because you didn't have time to change?"

It's a good thing that she doesn't particularly seem to expect an answer, because Din is just hanging on for the conversational ride at this point.

"Do they say things like—her voice drops— 'I'd let you polish my blaster'?" she wonders, then immediately corrects in a more normal tone, "No, gun jokes are boring. How about 'Come on baby, I'll make you blow out your voice modulator'? —yeah, that's good. I like that. That promises _good_ times. And then for extra sexiness, 'I'll fix it for you after' because good sex _and_ caring maintenance? _That_ Mando is a keeper." She points a finger at the sky for emphasis, and Din can't help it, he's smiling so wide he can feel it in his cheeks.

She goes silent, and after a while she turns her head toward him. He knows she can't see him as more than a deeper shadow in the dark, but he still goes warm under her gaze. They've not been… things have not happened between them, since she came back aboard. He'd tried not to hope for that kind of reconnection, but it's still disappointing that now he feels like he's open to the kind of closeness she offered, it's apparently no longer on offer.

Or maybe it is. Is this conversation a tipsy advance? Is she testing the waters by getting his mind onto flirting?

"Are you angry?" she asks, very softly, the worried rise in her voice yanking him away from his hopeful musing. He's been silent for a while and she has nothing to go on to gauge his mood. "I didn't mean to offend—"

"Dents," he cuts her off, because her tone of voice makes him feel like somebody he doesn't want to be.

"Wh-what?"

"There's a lot of stuff about… dents."

"...dents." She sounds dubious.

"Get dented," he says in the same laconic tone one might tell somebody 'get fucked'. "I'd let them dent me. Stuff like that."

She makes an intrigued 'hmm' noise and turns onto her back again.

"Dents," she muses at the sky. She's not slurring, but her voice is beginning to get that careful, deliberate enunciation of somebody who is aware slurring might not be far off. "Dent me up. Hmm. I'm gonna dent the hell out of you. I swear the two of them are trading dents." She turns back to him suddenly, tone dropping to something toe-curlingly seductive: "Hey hot stuff, want to come back to the ship and get each other all dented up?"

That _voice_. His self control can take only so much, his body is coming to attention. She's been drinking, he reminds himself. She's joking, just because he _wants_ it to mean—

"No, dented _up_ is wrong," she interrupts his thoughts decisively, turning back to face the sky. "That sounds like you're gonna take spice together. Back to the drawing board on that one."

She... is going to be the death of him.

"I feel like 'scrap' has potential. 'You two get into a scrap together?'" she gestures with her cup and then licks at her fingers when a little wine spills over the edge, which feels impossibly obscene to Din, enough to give him a full-body shiver. "—could have been fighting or fucking, who knows? Feels appropriate for Mandaro—Mandolo— _Mando's_. Or is that culturally in-ssensitive?"

It's… pretty accurate actually. And he doesn't want her to stop; he hasn't thought about the Corps with this much fond amusement in years, if ever. The tragic memories have always gotten in the way.

"It's fine."

"Oh, good. So something like—" she rolls her head to the side to look at him, and her voice drops into that low, seductive register that plugs straight into his lower brain functions— 'Do you want to go inside for a good scrap?'"

This time she doesn't turn away or break the tension, and Din feels his heart pound in his throat. He should—he needs to—

She yelps loudly and jolts upright, and Din does too, immediately reaching for his blaster. He looks around sharply for whatever just—

"You little brat!" Yala gasps out laughing the next moment, doubling over, and he keys a control on his bracer to bring up some low-level lighting. Ad'ika is standing by where Yala's feet were a moment ago, looking very pleased with himself.

"I did not need a _frog_ on my bare feet!" she is trying to sound stern and absolutely not succeeding even a little bit, still laughing and trying to catch her breath when the kid tries to hold the frog up to her face.

"No, ew, I don't want to eat it either. Go feed it to your dad," she gives the kid a little nudge toward Din. "Stuff it under his helmet, go on."

Din coughs a laugh when Ad'ika waddles up and tries exactly that, demonstrating a hitherto unsuspected ability to understand and follow verbal instructions.

Din has a vague memory of being very small and tackling his father, who had fallen over dramatically and surrendered. So he lets himself be silly, lets the lightest of pressure from the kid unbalance him so that he flops onto his back. Wails a dramatic 'Nooo!' when Ad'ika climbs onto his chest with little grunts of effort—and a small boost from Din's hand under his bottom— and stands there crowing triumphantly. Luckily the frog is already forgotten and has hopped away.

The kid raises his little arms in victory, a mannerism Yala has taught him, and she rolls onto her back, laughing so hard there might be tears.

Din feels laughter bubble up in his own chest, his abdomen is heaving with it, the kid wobbling to stay upright. It's an unfamiliar feeling, this lightness.

When the laughter has finally run its course he sits up, scooping Ad'ika up and setting him down in his bassinet. He'll get to the bedtime routine in a moment.

"Come on, enough wine for tonight," he says to Yala. "Let's get you to bed. You're the one who's flying the ship tomorrow."

"Nooo," she grouses, letting herself flop back onto the ramp. "I'm so _bad_ at it."

"That's why you practice."

She makes a disgruntled noise.

"You don't have to be a good pilot. I just need you to be able to get away in an emergency."

He offers his hand to haul her to her feet, and automatically wraps his arm around her waist to steady her. Only then does he realise with a shock that the coarse-knit top she's wearing lets his fingertips slip right through the stitches, and he's not wearing his gloves.. The touch of her bare skin, warm and soft in the curve of her waist, momentarily brings him to a halt. They haven't touched beyond handing each other Ad'ika, since she came back.

"Come on, to bed," he says, hoping that his voice doesn't sound as affected as he feels. "Being hungover won't get you a respite."

She makes an indignant huff and pushes his hand away, standing up straight.

"Hey, I can walk. 'M not that drunk. See?"

She walks away from him and spins, then rises on her toes and walks in a precise line. It takes her some concentration, but he has to admit she's more coordinated than expected. Not that that was precisely his motivation to put his arm about her, but. Well.

He tears his eyes away from her bare feet, somehow elegant and impossibly vulnerable on the rough floor of his ship.

Much like she herself is, and the kid. What is he even thinking, considering high risk jobs?

He shakes off that morose thought.

"I'm impressed, and expecting some expert flying from you tomorrow."

Her face falls comically as she remembers she was trying to talk him out of a lesson, not into it, and she looks up at him for a moment.

She looks so tempting, standing there like this. Bare feet, leggings, and then that coarse-knit top that clings to her curves and offers barely any barrier at all if he should want to put his fingers on her skin. He can still feel the smooth, soft curve of her waist under his fingertips, remembers what it felt like to dig his fingers into the supple flesh of her hip, her thighs.

He can't stop hearing the tone of voice she used earlier, that low seductive purr that seemed to speak directly to his dick without consulting his brain. There's a moment where he thinks she might—where he almost—

"'Kay. Goodnight," she says, turning away just a touch too fast, judging by her overbalanced first step. She disappears into the cargo bay, pulling the curtain shut behind her. Leaving Din standing there feeling… he doesn't even know what he's feeling. He wants to go after her, to tell her to come back. His hands are clenching and unclenching with the desire to touch her.

_Do not fuck this up for yourself._

Strangely enough he hears that thought in Cara's voice. The past few weeks have been the best he can remember. Yala's presence doesn't only make things easier in the way the presence of a second adult does. It's _her_ , her chattiness and ready smile and the way she makes the kid squeal with joy and the way she makes him breathe easier just with her presence. He can't risk fucking this up, starting something she might regret.

He can't risk that she might leave. He needs her more than she needs him.

Ad'ika coos at him from the bassinet. Does it have a sympathetic tone or is that just his imagination? Din cups his hand around the little head and sighs.

The next morning Yala is a little quiet, though she doesn't wince at the sound of the engine firing up, so perhaps it's not a hangover. By now her flying is… it's fine. Landings are still a little rough, but she'll be able to get herself and the kid away in an emergency, which was his main goal.

He can't tell her that, because he wants her to keep practicing.

His grudging "Not bad" seems to land harder than he'd intended. When the ship is on course she slips past him with a quiet 'Sorry for last night.'

He has been alone in the cockpit for long minutes before it occurs to him that perhaps he should have said something, though he's fucked if he knows what. The right words could probably have fixed—whatever this is. But he's never been good at knowing the right words.

When he goes down to the 'fresher later he can hear her behind the curtain to the cargo bay, quietly reading to the kid. He's tempted to go in to join them, to listen in, but he still doesn't know what to say to her. He takes his blasters up to the cockpit to occupy himself with cleaning, instead. 

By the time they land on the next planet that afternoon she seems back to her usual self, so it's probably fine.

It's strange how different people respond to him when he's accompanied by Yala and the kid. Even if there isn't an overt assumption that they're a family, people are much quicker to relax around him. Often they do assume that though, and it feels… good.

...though Din wishes Yala hadn't told him about what she calls the 'Oh honey, did you know?' look she gets from other women when the three of them are together. He can't help recognising it now when he sees it: the looks first going to the adorable baby with his green skin and enormous ears. Then to its apparent parents: Yala, obviously human, and Din himself, covered head to toe. The extrapolation about the father's looks. Then the sympathetic look cast in Yala's direction.

She's told him with a certain amount of glee that she's had discrete questions like "Was it a shock when he was born?" and "Don't your husband's ears hurt under that helmet?"

Din was much better off not knowing that.

Especially because it's not as ridiculous as he wants it to be. Not to the extent of being green with giant ears. But—

If he continues following the Way as he has been thus far, and he were to father a child, its mother would never have seen his face. She would be looking at the child's face, trying to subtract her own features, and wondered if what remained resembled him.

It seems wrong.

(He very carefully does not imagine the hypothetical mother of that hypothetical child of his blood.)

Had ' _Don't take your helmet off for anyone. Don't let anyone take off your helmet_ ' been what the Creed meant? Or had they, as he is beginning to believe, been the instructions of a rushed, worried guardian sending off the clan's children into the unknown, assuming that at least _some_ of the adults would be able to join them again soon? Had they been the touchstone for their Armourer, suddenly finding herself Alor of a clan of scared children and teens long before she was ready, trying to keep them all safe?

If he really thinks about it, he knows that even in the Corps that adopted him, helmets came off in dire necessity. As shielded and private as possible, sure; Din had never _seen_ any of his guardians without helmet. But he remembers a headwound getting treated, and nobody suggesting the injured man was less of a Mandalorian afterward.

He remembers one of his first time joining the corps on a mission, finding a hysterically crying toddler alone in an alley, terrified of the metal men. He remembers Jureh, one of the infantry commanders, ordering him to guard the alley entrance and stress that he was to keep his back to it. Remembers hearing the huff of her sigh through her voice modulator, and then, very shortly, the child's crying quietening to soft sobs. Jureh had come out with the kid on her hip, and Din had never realised it before, that she must have shown her face to the kid, to reassure it. She'd even had her own grimey handprints on the side of her helmet.

So maybe it really is only his own tribe—whatever is left of it now— that believes that you stop being a Mandalorian as soon as you take off your helmet with another living being present.

If that is the case, and Din were to decide that he can be a Mandalorian who takes off his helmet in the private company of his own Clan, his own son...

—which. Well. Every time he sits with stomach growling while they eat, or feels ridiculous eating behind a curtain. Every time he hears Yala pause at an entrance and ask if it's okay to come in. Every time his son looks at him and Din knows the kid is only seeing himself reflected in his visor—

Taking off the helmet is beginning to feel more a matter of _when_ than _if_.

But that means a permanent break with his people, the only Mandalorian connection left to him.

A permanent break with the last survivors of the tribe that he was charged by his guardians to protect and sustain. If any have survived, he needs to find them and help them. If there are foundlings left, he needs to provide for them. The Creed, as much as his own values, would not let him turn away from them.

He can't make himself _dar'manda_ in their eyes. Not before he at least knows if they need his help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been SO looking forward to sharing this chapter :-D


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an accompanying outside POV story with this chapter that I'll post to the series tomorrow. Make sure to subscribe to the series, not this story, so you don't miss it :-)

A month flies by.

Din feels like a changed man—or perhaps just a man fully caught up on sleep and with little stress on his mind. Those might be the same thing.

After a long day he helps Yala tow her clinic kit into the cargo area on its hover dolly. On top of the big medical chest is a crate with… well, foodstuffs, from the looks of it. Jars, greenery, a couple of bottles. She has more stuff in her rucksack.

People usually pay her for her medical care with goods. Besides food he's realised this system is responsible for some of her more eclectic wardrobe items. The rare times they do pay in credits, she reserves those for replenishing her medical supplies.

Perishable food is either traded or they eat right away, the stuff that will keep for a while disappears into a storage hatch in the Razor Crest, where they've built up a nice stash. Seeing it sit there, weeks worth of food, soothes some kind of clench in his chest Din didn't know he had.

The first weeks with the kid in tow had been the roughest; Din was used to living on ration packs, which the kid refused to eat, so he'd had to figure out different food on the fly while expecting bounty hunters on their tail at any moment. A couple of times, when running was more important than buying food, he'd had to listen to the kid's plaintive cries of hunger.

He hasn't told Yala about that. This just seems to be a thing she does, a habit learned in a youth of constant planet hopping: stock up when you can, especially when it's cheap. You never know what the situation will be on the next stop.

(He thinks that's probably also why she pressed him to accept the cured bantha meat. Which, he has now found out, she calls Varik because it's her 'roommate' in the cargo hold, and she once shared a cabin with somebody called Varik who never spoke a word. Din is willing to go with it at this point.)

"Good haul?"

"Yeah! Got steaks and tubers, we could have a feast tonight. Last night in the sector, right?"

He nods. They'd agreed on this being the last stop of their trial month. He's been wondering if they need to have any sort of formal evaluation moment. Is that what you do? He's new to flying with a crew.

"Oh, and this family came down from the hills to get all seventeen kids living on their nut farm inoculated." she swings down her rucksack and pulls out a bar wrapped in crinkly material. "These are like compressed nutty ration bars, and they taste pretty good." She breaks off a small piece and hands it to him. "Should keep for years. Shall I just stash them way in the back?" she gestures to her rucksack and he realises that it's filled with the things.

It takes a moment for him to make sound come out of his throat.

"...yes. Please."

When she's gone to put the things away he unseals his helmet and slips the bit of food into his mouth. It's good. Leagues ahead of the dry, tasteless ration bars he buys coreward. He takes back every disparaging thing he's even said and thought about people paying in good instead of credits.

He moves them for the night, to a remote spot he's seen earlier; an open field with a tiny stream splashing through it. Ad'ika, delighted to his water-dwelling little soul, wriggles out of his clothes and splashes around in the stream for hours and barely stops to eat. He might be catching fish and eating them? Din should check to see if there are fish. Thankfully the kid seems to have an instinct for what he can eat; he hasn't made himself sick yet so Din leaves him to it and hopes for the best.

Din and Yala build a small fire and roast the tubers, vegetables and fry the steaks. She eats by the fire. Din takes his food inside the Razor Crest and wolfs it down faster than good food should be eaten, just so he can jam his helmet back on and go back outside.

"So, where next?" she asks when he settles down by the fire. She's opening a bottle of fruit wine. Din holds out his cup. They're safe here and they'll be in the black tomorrow, heading coreward, so he feels like he can risk it.

"I need to find out what's left of the tribe. Some of them escaped Nevarro, and it's my duty to see to it that they're…"

He trails off, not sure what word could possibly fit here. Safe? Alive? Well?

Thankfully Yala just nods.

"All right. So where do we start?"

Good question. His instincts say 'Nevarro' but he's not sure if he's ready to go back there. The tribe had fallback places, put together over the years since they'd been sent away from the corps. Some of them were refuges they'd initially moved on from, some of them new. Most of them hadn't been inspected or stocked since the purge, but at least some of those would be habitable for a small group of refugees.

"There's a few places we can start to look."

He lays out a route for them, though they're all planets she doesn't know, so he doesn't go into too much detail.

"How was this month for you? If we're going to be travelling together from now on, is there anything you want to change?" Yala asks, reclining against a rock she's padded with a wadded up tarp.

"It's been…" he searches for a way to describe just how completely _different_ this month was from anything he's ever experienced in his life before. He's not sure he has ever felt this level of peace.

"It's been—good. To have you aboard."

She quirks a smile, possibly sensing that there's a lot he can't find the right words for.

"I've enjoyed myself," she nods.

"Hmm. Things are going to be. Different. When we get out of this system. You'll need to be more on guard. We're going to places where we could come into tracking range for bounty hunters. There are still plenty of people after the kid."

She nods seriously.

"No more mudhorn toy to the market—he could be snatched up before you even know it. Keep him in a sling in public. Hidden if you can—you should consider robes. The fewer people who see him well enough to describe him, the better."

"Okay."

He plows on, because if she's not willing to deal with this, he'd rather know it now.

"There will be places where you can't go out without me. Or where you can't leave the ship at all."

He can't read her expression, though she obviously doesn't relish the thought.

"I'll try not to do those places back to back," he adds.

"Yeah, I really can't make promises about our," she gestures between the happily splashing kid and herself, "sanity, if you cooped us up too long."

The thought of being on a job in some of the unsavoury places where he finds jobs… knowing she might be walking through some market with the child in tow… it makes his stomach clench with worry. Even if the kid weren't sought after she'd be a target.

He is wholly unprepared to have two people to care about to this degree. Just the kid was bad enough. Din mentally edits the options of places where he might find work, dropping some of the roughest ones. He can't act as if he's still travelling alone; he'll have to adjust his approach.

"I'll make sure it doesn't come to that."

A rustle in the grass nearby draws his attention, and then a fish flops toward him, chased by a hopping little Ad'ika, soaking wet and stark naked.

"Hey little guy." Din scoops him up, "Time to come in, huh?"

Yala passes him the towel and the kid's clothes, then deftly picks up the fish to toss it back into the stream.

Funds are low, so he tries Sanbra first. It's temperate, fairly cultured, and where they land is close to the university city. The next few days are filled with small-time jobs. Din is still trying to get back into it, get used to taking risks while Yala and the kid are waiting for him on the ship.

Meanwhile Yala tries to get used to the much more restricted life of waiting for him on the ship, cooped up with the kid. Some days he vaguely envies her—rainwater is plentiful here, and on the third day he comes home from a job to discover that she's used a tarp and some soap to build a slide on the ship's ramp. The kid is having the time of his life, running around buck-naked and soapy, and Yala is in shorts and a tank top, looking soaped up like she's been using the slide herself too.

Din spends a good ten minutes just… watching them, before he announces his arrival. It's not just about the indecently short shorts Yala is wearing, though that certainly doesn't hurt. He's just… this kind of uncomplicated fun has not been part of his life. He's glad Yala is here to make sure it _is_ part of the kid's life.

Other days she puts the kid in his arms as soon as he gets back and goes for a walk, or talks his ears off. He's very aware that he's taken her from an active, stimulating job and given her one that is at times isolating and boring, and he's not sure if he's offering enough in return.

Not that he's having an exciting time of it either. Sanbra jobs are low key. He delivers a couple of valuable packages, tracks down a debtor, escorts a jeweler on his delivery rounds.

The latter turns out to be a worthwhile experience—the rich lady who gets a delivery of a priceless necklace decides she likes the look of him, and hires him to accompany her on a shopping trip the same afternoon. He's well aware that he'll be more of an accessory to her than a bodyguard; she certainly doesn't treat him like the hired muscle. But it pays well and Din is very willing to be an imposing beskar accessory if it means credits and making it back to his ship unscathed at the end of the day.

Of course, he hadn't counted on the _flirting_.

It isn't the first time he's seen somebody look him up and down and develop a fascination, but it is the first time that person is also his client. A very attractive client, who, more than that, is also very likeable.

A year ago he would have taken Miss Loysia up on her offer, but now…

She isn't pushy about it, so he doesn't much react and keeps his tone neutral, hoping to politely discourage her without offending.

How the Mandalorians that raised him would have felt about him walking beside this rich lady, keeping an eye out for her safety but really more of a fancy beskar accessory, Din prefers not to think about. Is this worthy of Death Watch? Would one of the legendary warriors of Mandalore consider this kind of work? His buir wouldn't have thought so. Nobody in the corps would have. He can just imagine what Paz would have said if he could see him now.

 _I don't know if you noticed_ , he thinks to their ghost voices in his head, _but Mandalorians are in short supply these days. Better to stay alive and raise my kid. Is that not worth some humble work?_

To his surprise even after Miss Loysia drops the overt flirting, she seems to delight in introducing him to things she likes. After he all but admits that his crew mate is the reason he is not interested in her overtures, she focuses her attention on making sure that they can all leave the ship and see something of the city.

To this end she sends him home at the end of the day with three times his expected pay, as well as a package containing a set of robes, tickets to some sort of concert event in the university park, and a box of her favourite pastries that he couldn't partake in while she lunched. She also gives him a commlink; she has a job coming up in a couple of weeks that he doesn't think he can take, but he wants to keep the option open.

Miss Loysia also, he discovers when Yala unpacks the robes, gave him a box of the tiny exclusive chocolates from the chocolaterie where he'd accompanied her. Yala tries one, lets it melt in her mouth with a decidedly not decent moan, and then snaps her eyes open.

"Get behind the curtain," she orders. When he doesn't immediately jump into action, she reaches out to pull it shut herself. "Come on, get behind there, take off your bucket, and tell me this isn't like—I'll think of a metaphor later."

She's so excited, he can't help but obey and sit down where he's hidden by the heavy black curtain. It's becoming more normal to take off the helmet when she's in the room but out of sight; she's always so careful to make sure not to risk seeing him.

After a moment her hand comes around the curtain with one of the sweets between her fingers. He can't help himself, instead of accepting it from her with his fingers, he supports her hand for a moment and then leans in to take it with his lips.

She makes a gratifyingly high-pitched noise of surprise, but he can't focus on it much because the chocolate melts enough to spill its flavoured filling and—he puts a hand over his mouth to hold back a moan.

After a moment he thinks to jam the helmet back onto his head and open the curtain, and they just stare at each other for a long moment. He can think of nothing so much as kissing her, sharing the flavour on his tongue.

"Did you sleep with her?" Yala suddenly breaks the silence, and Din jerks his head in surprise, thoughts violently derailed. She continues, "Because I'd understand if you slept with her—" He shakes his head, on the verge of telling her that if course he didn't, he only wants her, he can't imagine wanting anybody but her, how can she not know that? She's still talking, "Fuck, _I_ 'd sleep with her for these chocolates, do you think she's into women?"

This generates a number of simultaneous reactions with Din; frustration that she doesn't seem to know that he feels attached to her to the exclusion of others, a crude joke about what is needed to get her to sleep with _him_ , a mental image of Yala and Loysia naked together, a corresponding tightness of his trousers. His face heats.

Fuck, one day he will manage to keep up with her rapid mental jumps and swerves, but today is not that day, apparently. He groans and lets himself drop into the pilot seat.

"No. I did not sleep with her. How'd things go here?"

She flops down in the passenger seat.

"Tantrum town, baby. He was sunshine all morning, but then this afternoon he wanted to try my snack instead of his own. He got angry that he didn't like it, and--" she blows out an explosive breath. "For such a little thing he can be a huge brat, put it like that."

Din grimaces. A toddler throwing a tantrum is no big deal, but with the powers Ad'ika has... He'd told Yala about what had happened with Cara. She hadn't seemed too worried about it, and he hopes she'll never have reason to become worried.

"Did he…" Din gestures, uncertain what exactly he means.

"He threw some things. Mostly his toy frog. Then he tired himself out and fell asleep."

"Hmm."

So far, Din has mostly thought about finding the kid's people as an obligation laid on him by the Mandalorian Way. One he's not looking forward to; he's getting very attached to the little guy, and leaving him behind would be hellish. However, he needs guidance on how to handle the strange powers the kid commands. Ad'ika needs to learn how to control his emotions and powers, or a tantrum could get truly dangerous for those around him, and Din can't teach him.

"The client gave me tickets to some kind of concert in a park tonight," he says.

She perks up.

"Oh?"

"And you have robes now that would hide Ad'ika in a sling."

"Ohh."

"So let's have dinner and head into town."

There is a distinct wiggle of excitement as she jumps up to grab what she's prepared for dinner and puts it in the convection oven. Din feels a little guilty for leaving her so cooped up; perhaps it hasn't been as necessary on this planet as he thought. He expects here to be a few days more, and if things feel safe enough tonight, she should be fine enough with Ad'ika hidden by a robe.

When the food is heating she comes back and gestures at the box of chocolates.

"Can you… you have more self control than I. Can you keep these safe and only let us have one a day?"

"What about Ad'ika?"

"Are you kidding? His favourite meal is _live frogs_. He does not have the kind of palate to appreciate these."

He would protest, and maybe her motive isn't exactly selfless, but she's also not wrong.

"Fine. One a day."

An hour later they head to the university in a speeder cab, Yala robed up with the kid tucked high against her chest in a sling. It's visible that she's carrying a baby, but people aren't likely to assume anything but a humanoid baby.

Yala's excitement is infectious, and Din's unease is soothed by how it looks like he's escorting another client. He really needs to get used to this, to them going out in public. There's no way to keep them safe all the time everywhere without making their lives hell in the process.

The university park truly is beautiful, stretched out grounds with lawns and copses of trees and large fountains. They find a sheltered little field far from the music and let Ad'ika run around for a while, scooping him up just before he manages to get into a fountain. When he's tired himself out enough to sit happily in the sling, Din and Yala drift to the back of the crowd to listen.

She's bouncing on the balls of her feet in time with the music, and Din isn't surprised at all to get a pleading look when the crowd forms up into a circle to dance.

"I—I can't," he admits. Not only is it entirely the wrong look for a Mandalorian bodyguard to dance with his client, he also just literally can't. If he's ever danced in his life, he has no memory of it, and to try it for the first time here would draw far too many eyes.

"Here, hand him over. Go have fun."

It feels safe enough here in the low-lit area at the back of the crowd. She passes the kid over, who happily nestles in the crook of Din's arm. Together they watch as Yala observes the dance for a few moments and then jumps in. Her neighbours in the growing circle help her along, one of them guides her in the correct direction when she momentarily turns wrong. She's talking and smiling as she jumps and twirls.

Her face is like the sun to Din, and he wonders if it's just to him. Do the people around her see it too? Given the way her neighbours in the dance turn to her, he's pretty sure they do. Even fully robed with her hair covered he picks her out of the dancing crowd without any effort.

Ad'ika is crowing and pointing too, and Din smiles at the kid.

"She's great, huh?"

She comes back at the end of the dance, flushed and glowing with joy.

"Are you stopping already?"

"Oh, I didn't want to make you…" she gestures vaguely, apparently expecting him to want to be away again. It's not late yet though, and he meant for this evening to be a chance for her to stretch her legs and socialise. He'll happily wait.

"We're enjoying ourselves watching you," he says, which is absolutely true. "Dance as long as you like."

Her expression does something joyous and impossibly endearing, and she steps in close to press a kiss to the kid's forehead. Then, before he even realises what's going on, she rises on tiptoe to lightly bonk her forehead to his helmet.

He's still standing there, stunned, by the time she has rejoined the dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So I'm not really planning to get to Yala's point of view in this story (Din's eyes serve me better for this plot) but I AM very willing to indulge requests for short ficlets of her POV in specific moments. So if you want to come to my tumblr and [send me an ask](https://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/ask) with a moment in this story you want to see through her eyes, please do!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yala wraps her own blanket closer around the kid in her lap. "Hey, if you're warm, take off the gear and hold him, I don't have a lot of body heat to share here."
> 
> That seems entirely reasonable and yet also insufficient to Din.

Everything feels more comfortable after Sanbra, especially the fuel and repair fund for the Razor Crest. He knows he can come back to the planet and the jeweler will likely be happy to employ him again, and Miss Loysia has said she'd be willing to recommend him to any of her high profile friends. It feels good to have some work on reserve for when he'll need it.

Now they have the fuel reserves, it's time to start trying to find the tribe's former refuges, hoping to find whoever survived.

The first stop is some inhospitable ice planet where there's a habitat blasted deep into a sheer rock wall. He radios first—no answer— and checks it out by himself, mindful of any boobytraps.

It's empty.

That was to be expected, this was never meant to be a long-term location. The fuel requirements to make it habitable are impractical. What makes his head feel light with relief is that there are signs that the space has been used not long ago, and there are recent marks on the wall. _Mandalorians were here._ He is not the last of his tribe.

He comes back into the Razor Crest to let Yala know that she and Ad'ika don't need to bother coming outside, only to find them already suiting up in their arctic gear.

He doesn't relish going back out, but they've been in the black a full day to get here, so giving them the chance to get off the ship seems the saner option.

Din really needs a holo recorder.

The kid is—he's, over top his other clothes he's wearing the patterned handknit sweater Yala traded for, thick and woolly and floor length. But most of all, he's wearing Yala's thick fur mittens over his ears. Yala has cut slots into a spare wooly hat and pulled it overtop of the mittens, passing them through the slots. There's a fluffy bobble on top of the hat. His body is so wrapped up his waddle is even stronger than normal, little arms sticking out to the side, and with every step the mittens wobble up and down.

_(awesome art made by[wildmomodoesart](https://wildmomodoesart.tumblr.com/post/611536892235808768/a-cold-but-happy-little-yodika-this-was-a)! Please leave a comment at their tumblr!)_

Din has to lean against the bulkhead because his chest is suddenly full to bursting with—he's not really sure, but there's a lot of it, something light and fizzy and—

His knees feel weak, and he lets himself slide down the wall to sit on the ground and holds out his arms to the kid, who waddles over. His outstretched little hands, only barely peeking out of the bulky knit sleeves, are covered by some of Yala's socks.

Din picks him up and puts him in his lap, laughing silently because the sheer relief of seeing signs of his people has risen to his head like a third cup of spotchka, and the kid's mittened ears are suddenly the funniest thing he's ever seen. The kid giggles and pokes at his helmet with his little sock-covered fingers.

"Are you okay?"

Yala crouches in front of them, sounding a little concerned. He looks up at her and realises she just sees his shoulders jolting.

"Can't tell if you're laughing or sobbing," she says with rueful amusement.

"The _mittens_ ," he gets out, high-pitched and wheezing with laughter, and Yala gets it then, looks at him with a grin while he recovers himself.

"Can we come and look?"

Din doesn't think he could deny them anything right now. She could ask for his armour and his hands would be going to the straps before he'd even thought about it.

Yala is also wearing her traded-for sweater, and she puts Ad'ika into a sling against her chest, then slips on Din's sweater—so _that's_ where that went—so it engulfs both her and the kid, both their heads sticking out the wide neckhole like some sort of weird two-headed creature.

"I should have thought to buy a holo recorder," he shakes his head.

"I have one?" she says, confused. "It's not great, but it works. Do you want it?"

"Yes. Please.." He'd just… had no idea that taking photos would be something he'd ever want.

She digs it out of her storage chest and hands it over.

"Sorry, if I'd—I would have put it in the cockpit sooner. I guess I didn't realise that you might want it."

"I didn't know I'd want to record things, either," he admits. Making these kind of tangible memories hasn't ever been part of his life before. He's never really considered that there might be a future to look back from.

Yala puts on her oversized windproof parka with the fur ruff, zips it up as far as it will go under the kid's chin, and jams a hat onto her own head. Her grin for the photo is brilliant. Din wants to kiss her.

It probably took more time to get them both dressed than they last outside, but they both seem to enjoy their exploration of the caves, so he'll take it as a win. After a lifetime of looking only for the fastest, most efficient way from A to B, he's learning to consider factors like 'Has the kid been out of the ship over the last days' and 'Would Yala find it interesting.'

Ad'ika can't walk here, his feet would freeze to the stone floor. To make up for it Yala lets the kid use her as a mecha suit, walking where he wants to go, picking up the things he wants to examine and bringing them within reach. Din shows them the wall markings that mean that some of the tribe have been here recently, and then lets the kid 'help' him make his own mark on the wall, a beskar engraving pen clutched in his sock-clad hand while Yala patiently leans close enough for his little arms to reach the wall.

All three of them are cold when they come back to the Razor Crest. Din turns up the heat in the cockpit, gets them in the air, and heats soup while Yala unpeels herself and the kid from their 37 layers of clothing and wraps them both in blankets.

"Are you not cold?" she asks when he brushes past her, and then makes a noise of shock and yanks back her hand--she touched his thigh plate, he realises belatedly. It seems absurdly intimate for something he didn't actually feel.

"The beskar gets cold, but the layer on the inside doesn't conduct temperature very much," he explains.

"That's not what I asked," she points out with a tilt of her head. "Don't you get cold? Your under armour layers aren't that warm, are they?"

"They insulate well. And I run hot," he shrugs. As soon as he came inside, the real chill started fading for him. Going by their shivering, it doesn't work like that for them.

She says something under her breath that he doesn't catch.

"What?"

Her face looks flushed with the cold.

"I said, 'some people'," she says. "And some people are lizards like you and me, huh little guy?" She wraps her own blanket closer around the kid in her lap. "Hey, if you're warm, take off the gear and hold him, I don't have a lot of body heat to share here."

That seems entirely reasonable and yet also insufficient to him. He wants to hold both of them, but there is no natural way that might happen with the individual chairs in the cockpit, like it could on a bench seat. He'd have to suggest it, they'd have to figure out where to sit, and it seems… unless she outright suggests to sit in his lap, it seems things might get awkward. He goes down to his bunk to shed his plates and outer and mid layers, coming back up to the cockpit clad in his softest wool base layers.

"All right, come here you," he murmurs, lifting Ad'ika out of Yala's lap. The kid sinks against his chest with a quiet coo, and Din presses those big ears, chilled at the tips, against the heated skin of his own throat to warm them.

Just when he's trying to figure out how to invite Yala in too, he looks up to find her pointing the holo recorder at them. He's only considered taking photos of them, so it startles Din a little, the idea of being in such an image. The permanence of it. But she's smiling in a way that makes him feel warm in his chest, and he doesn't object.

When she's done she goes to the galley to check on the soup, and the moment is gone, if it ever existed in the first place.

They try another refuge that turns out to be empty, though this one is also ransacked. Some time ago though, from the looks of it. Din deems it safe enough to spend an afternoon enjoying the thermal springs deep in the cave system.

Yala and the kid go first, disappearing with a stack of towels and clothes and improvised floaty toys. Din guards the entrance. Unnecessary, because the Razor Crest has proximity alarms and it's safe enough, but he gives himself the task to avoid any temptation of going back there and—

It's not about—

It's not a sex thing. Though he definitely also shouldn't spend time thinking about Yala naked and relaxed in a rock pool of steaming hot water, the way her brown nipples would be tight from the contrast of heat and chill…

It's not about that.

It's about missing out. Ad'ika is squealing and splashing, and he hears Yala laugh, and something is happening which he'd like to be part of but he can't, he _can't_. He'll wait, and listen, and they'll come out and then he'll go back there. And he'll have a quick wash, because what reason will there be to linger?

The helmet, something that's given him shape and identity for most of his life, that's protected him, something that has felt more like his face than his actual face, feels like it's holding him back.

The next planet, his customary codified radio hail does not go unanswered. It's not answered the way it's supposed to, with a phrase in basic that obliquely references Mandalore… but there's a quick burst of static, and then a loud knock, and then nothing.

This refuge is halfway into a mountainside, at half a day's walk from the nearest settlement. It's the living quarters of a former mine, long abandoned. Din takes care on his approach to not be seen from the village, and sets down The Razor Crest a couple hundred meters away from the entrance.

He's just telling Yala that they'll do this like the others; he'll go look on his own and come back for them with if it's safe, when they spot two people in the mine entrance.

Two people in familiar helmets and armour. The two youngest warriors the tribe had had, in their late teens.

They have found his tribe, whatever is left of it.

"You might as well come," he says. Once he's inside, he'll probably want to stay, see how the situation is. It'll be easier to introduce them straight away.

She smiles, leaning toward the viewport to look at the two Mandalorians at the entrance.

"You want us to meet them right away?"

He nods, surprisingly eager for her to meet his people.

By the time they have the kid dressed and in the bassinet with today's preferred arrangement of toys, their welcoming committee has disappeared, and they make their way into the mine entrance unchallenged. Din wonders if those two have gone in to warn somebody, or if they are the caretakers of whoever is left here. Suffering gods, he hopes not. He wishes that task onto no teenager, but also, if that is the case he will be obligated to stay here and mentor, and that is impossible.

There's a long rough-hewn tunnel, lit at regular intervals with low-power glowlights. Din hasn't been here in twenty years, but he remembers that off to the right are six large rooms that have been habitable for long term use, and some more space deeper into the mountain. Yala is looking around with interest.

Din swings wildly between elation to have found somebody of his tribe, anybody at all, and dread about how bad the situation likely is.

At the end of a hall a door slams, and then the large, armour-clad bulk of Paz comes into view, a deeply welcome sight as he strides toward them. The teens are not facing this situation alone. His brother is here, and well.

 _"WHERE THE **HELL** HAVE YOU BEEN?!" _Paz roars in Mando'a, voice thundering around the hacked out tunnel. _"About FUCKING time you checked in!"_


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Tyellas for stuntreading <3

" _WHERE THE **HELL** HAVE YOU BEEN?!_" Paz roars in Mando'a, voice thundering around the hacked out tunnel. " _About FUCKING time you checked in!"_

As he comes to a halt in front of them he turns to Yala, who rocks back on her heels.

 _"And who are YOU?_ " he barks at her, gesturing explosively. He steps even closer, towering over her, getting in her face. "What the _fuck_ is an _aruetii_ doing here?!"

Din curses himself for being too slow to react, to step in front of her. He'd expected her to yell back, or to retreat and let him handle it. Instead—

She just kind of… freezes up. Her elbows tight against her side, her shoulders drawing in and up. Her right hand looks ready to push the baby behind her, out of Paz's reach. Her breathing is fast and shallow, and she doesn't move at all while Paz looks her up and down, her every muscle tensed.

He's seen her like this once before, six years ago: the very first moments they met on Silken when he'd shouted at her to tell him where to find her boss. It's somehow worse now, because he hadn't _cared_ about her then—the only thing that had mattered, that had caused him to shift down his affect, was that she couldn't tell him anything useful if she was too frozen to speak. He cares now, in ways and volumes he isn't entirely ready to face.

Din really knows very little about her past, but even the small part he does know could explain this kind of reaction easily enough. Relatively comfortable circumstances or not, she was a prisoner on Silken for years, and Ghrikk Evoros was a very large man known for his temper. He doesn't know if this is that, but it wouldn't surprise him.

He glances at the baby, who has his ears tucked down and whimpers as if trying to keep quiet. There's a thick, metallic taste in Din's mouth that he remembers from when the kid was inside the Client's laboratory, and seems to be the kid projecting. It's the taste of fear.

He wants to punch his brother for causing this, but that will make everything that much worse.

"Yala," Din says gently in Basic. She's standing right next to him, only the bassinet between them, and he wants to reach out, but she looks like she would jump out of her skin. "Yala, why don't you take Ad'ika to—" he almost suggests the ship, but he's not sure if he can convince her to come back in here if she does. "To the room back there?"

He can tell that it takes effort to move, to come back into her body. That she has to force her limbs into motion. Then she scoops the kid from the hover bassinet, blanket and all, and cradles him against her. Her head ducks down protectively over his as she quickly walks back down the hallway. The stuffed frog toy falls, unnoticed, from a fold of the blanket.

" _You— **fucking** tone it down,_" Din growls when he turns back to his older brother, speaking again in Mando'a now. No way that wasn't a deliberate intimidation effort.

" _What, is she laandur?_ " Paz huffs. _Delicate_. A grave insult for a Mandalorian woman.

Yala isn't a fighter in the way Mandalorians will recognise, but she is tough and resourceful and he would never think of her as laandur. Hells, he's seen her handle the aftermath of a very bloody farming accident with methodical, icy calm.

" _I don't care if you take your temper out on me,_ " Din says, his own temper straining. He doesn't want to have to explain her reaction; it's not his story to tell, and it really shouldn't require an explanation anyway. Paz is perfectly capable of sounding calm and non-threatening. He was always one of the best with the foundlings. " _But don't you fucking **dare** taking it out on my aliit ever again._"

Paz was clearly ready to fire back until the end of that sentence. He jerks his head in surprise.

" _Your aliit?_ "

" _Clan of the Mudhorn,_ " Din confirms, turning a little to show the symbol on his pauldron.

Paz grunts. _"Alor made that? She still alive?"_

_"She was when I was on Nevarro two months ago. She had the sigil ready."_

_"She still there?"_

_"I don't know. We haven't been back. She was… taking care of what was left behind."_

Melting down the armour of the fallen, Din doesn't want to say. They both know what Alor had been doing. It's painful enough without saying it aloud.

 _"I got eight of the young ones out,"_ Paz says heavily.

Eight. Of a tribe of over thirty. Suffering Gods above and below.

 _"Come,"_ Paz gestures down the tunnel to where the main rooms are. _"Meet them."_

Din shakes his head. _"I need to see to Yala and the little one first."_

His brother's posture slumps a fraction, as if he's feeling sheepish about upsetting them. Perhaps he is; the two of them have always had a contentious relationship, but Din has never known his older brother to be cruel to those weaker than him.

Paz reaches down to pick up the stuffed frog and puts it into the empty bassinet with a sigh.

_"You'll come later, yeah?"_

Din nods before heading back down the tunnel to find his _aliit_.

He finds them in the room nearest to the entrance, tucked away in a shielded corner on a high ledge. Bad place if you think you might need to fight or run, she'd be trapped there, but he knows she doesn't think like that, or at least wasn't thinking like that earlier.

She's got her knees drawn up to her chest, Ad'ika tucked in there. The kid makes a quiet, subdued little noise of recognition from his cozy little nest. He's holding Yala's hand, fingers wrapped around her thumb, as if he's comforting her. Din feels his heart squeeze with something he couldn't name if he took an hour with a holodictionary. The metallic taste in his mouth has faded; they're both at least calm.

"Hey..." Yala gives him a pained smile when he approaches, the empty bassinet hovering along behind him. "I'm sorry, it was just suddenly—I thought he— I couldn't breathe, I didn't mean to--"

"Are you all right?" he gently interrupts.

That startles her into silence, and he hates that she looks surprised that that's his first question. He reminds himself that she doesn't have any facial expression to go on. She might have worried he was unhappy with her, and the thought of that, of her not knowing for sure that he'd be on her side, pains him.

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologise. He was being a jerk."

"Okay. Sorry."

If she's apologising for apologising they've reached the end of his conversational abilities, so instead he steps closer and reaches up, deliberately slow, offering an embrace. She leans toward him, and he awkwardly wraps his arms around the both of them. Yala makes a 'wait' noise and lowers her knees over the ledge so that he's standing between her thighs, knees warm against his ribs, the kid sideways between them. It's a much closer embrace like this, and she sinks against him with a sigh, accepting the comfort he's been aching to give.

"Should have just stayed on the ship," she murmurs against his shoulder.

Din feels his whole body ache with longing to press a kiss to her forehead. And to the little one's forehead too; he's blinking at Din with big dark eyes. He never used to feel like his helmet was in his way, he welcomed the barrier it formed between himself and the world. Right now it is closing him off from these people he cares about, it's stopping him from the only way he can think of to express this great swell of feeling. He considers for half a second to just rip it off, throw it on the ground with a clang.

No. He _can't_ —he isn't—no. His duties to the tribe, to the foundlings—no.

This is his _aliit_ , right here, in his arms. He said that word out loud, to a witness. To Paz, even, who is sure to bring it up if given half the chance. _Aliit_. Clan. Family. He claimed them both. His. He needs to be able to protect them. He doesn't think he could if he gave up on the Creed.

The memory is suddenly overwhelming, of hiding from a storm when he was small, of his mother coming in to hold him, and then a short while later his father coming in to hold the both of them. He doesn't know if it was actually a worrying storm for his parents; he just remembers feeling safe and warm and loved.

Had his father felt this same rush of hot wrenching terror? The sure knowledge that there is _nothing_ he wouldn't do, no length he wouldn't go to, to keep them safe, and that that still might not be enough?

And it hadn't been.

Fuck, does she know—is she thinking he's back with his people now? That their journey together is ending?

There's a sharp, sore feeling in his throat he tries to swallow away, and he holds them a little closer. What if she decides—what if this is the moment—

"Yala…" he rasps. Stops, wets his throat and tries again. "Yala, be part of—of. Don't, don't go. Will you please—"

She lifts her head off his shoulder while he tries to get that out, makes an enquiring noise.

"I'm not… we agreed—I'm staying?"

"That's not the same, will you—the. The Mudhorn clan. Be part of our, our aliit."

"If you want me to, yes."

"If. If I—" he huffs in bemused disbelief. "If I-I _want_ you to?"

"Well, if your people don't…"

Here he thought he'd been obvious enough that if it were up to him, she's family. How can she have doubted that? Is he really that opaque to her?

"Yes," he breathes, too soft for the helmet's voice sensor to pick up. He tries again, finally manages a croaked " _Yes_ ," louder than intended, because apparently it needs saying. "I want you to. Yes."

He tightens his arms about her, and she does the same.

It isn't all he wants. He wants her as his _riduur_ , his life partner. He wants her in his bed. But he doesn't know how to ask those things without risking all of the good things he has now.

If she is in his aliit then she will stay. He will have time to figure that out.

"Do you mind if we go back to the ship?" Yala asks softly after a while. "We," she presses a kiss against the top of Ad'ika's head, "are both tired, and I'm not up for meeting more of your people right now. I'll come tomorrow."

He's relieved that she suggests it. She and Ad'ika are both tired and on edge from the surge of emotions, and things will go smoother if he has the chance to see how the last of his people are doing without having to be a filter for her or the kid. He'll go in tonight, talk to Paz, find out what the situation is. Introducing them will be easier tomorrow.

"Yes. come on."

"You don't have to—I meant, you should stay here."

"I'll walk you to the ship and then come back here for the evening."

He settles his arms around them in a better position, and he can feel her realise what he's going to do just a moment before he picks them both up from the ledge and turns around. Her knees tighten reflexively at his side and her arm settles more solidly around his neck, and oh, it feels _good_ , having her pressed so close. He's almost reluctant to put them down, but then she relaxes her thighs and lets herself slide down along his body until she's stretched out, hand still on the back of his neck.

He is going to have to reserve some time later to think about that sensation and all the things it stirs in him.

She doesn't step away from him, shoulder brushing against his arm, so he puts his arm across her shoulders and steers her out of the room and down the hallway. After a moment she wraps her near arm around his waist, fingers curling into his belt, and her steps attune to his. It's as if now they've finally started touching again, they can't stop.

Feeling her move with him as one unit is surprisingly—it does something agonisingly wonderful to his insides.

It isn't far to the ship, and Yala breathes easier once they're among trees. She walks up the ramp of the Razor Crest with relief speaking from her posture.

He holds a sleepy Ad'ika while Yala clips up the hammock in the cockpit, and he watches with a smile as she cues up a holovid and gets settled crosswise in the hammock, a cup of wine within reach. When she's ready he hands her the baby, who settles immediately in the crook of her arm, yawning contentedly.

Din ducks around to behind the hammock so he can leave the cockpit, and pauses. He doesn't really want to leave, but there is only so much he can do before he begins to feel self-consciously like he's stalling, like he'd rather be here with them than in the covert with his own people.

Except he'd called them his _Aliit_. They _are_ his people. And while he feels ties of tribe and creed and culture to his brother and the foundlings, these two people right here are closer to his heart.

"I'll be back later tonight. Use the comms if you need me."

She tips back her head to look at him upside down, and _fuck_ he nearly buckles to the desire to stay here, to climb into the hammock by her side and just—touch her, press against her while she seems to accept it, seeks it even.

"Will you give me some warning if you bring somebody back here?"

He freezes. Does she—does that carry the same implication in her version of Basic? Does she think he's going to bring somebody to his bed? The thought is so alien it throws him for a loop, and he feels momentarily stuck for an answer. Not only is there nobody at the covert now who is not either a youngling or his brother, but even if there _were_ somebody he wouldn't be interested. He's only interested in her. Doesn't she know? Does the fact that she assumed he might bring somebody to his bed suggest that she considers both of them free and available to do so? Gods, he hopes not.

"...I mean, I can get out of your way if you…"

Her voice is small; he has been quiet for too long again.

"...this is your home, I don't mean to—"

"Cyare," he interrupts, the endearment slipping out before he can stop it, "you are _aliit_. This is also _your_ home."

Her eyes widen, and he smiles at her, which she can't see.

"And I would not bring anybody aboard without discussing it with you first."

"Okay. I don't think I could handle another dose of your brother today."

 _Oh_. That's what she meant. Not 'bringing somebody back' but literally just, visitors. He's unspeakably relieved.

"I'll handle him."

She smiles up at him, and he wants to kiss that sweet curve of her lips, wants to press all this affection against her mouth until she breathes it deep, until reassurance fills her lungs. The more he wants to say to her the more he finds that words, the only thing he has available to him, do not feel like enough.

He lets a gloved fingertip trace her eyebrow, and her eyes drift shut.

"I'll see you tonight."

"Mm-hmm."

He turns the cockpit lights down low as he leaves. He doubts she'll see more than ten minutes of the holovid, as sleepy as she looks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They _touched!_ didyaseethat they TOUCHED


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ori'vod," he says as he sits down next to Paz in the main room of the mine's living quarters. _Big brother._
> 
> Paz grunts. The both of them watch the teens teaching the younger kids basic fighting moves.
> 
> "Seems we both unexpectedly became single fathers," Din eventually comments.

As he walks back, Din reflects on just how close he's already come to just taking his helmet off. He never would have thought that simple things like wanting to express himself to his—to a—to somebody important in his life would cause him to come to this point.

The rule hadn't seemed like a constraint when he was on his own. It had just seemed to make sense.

_Don't take your helmet off for anyone. Don't let anyone take off your helmet._

That's what they had been told when they were hurriedly sent away from the Corps twenty years ago. Had that really been what the Creed meant? Or had their group of scared teenagers and kids simply clung to those words, to the strictest possible interpretation of the Creed, when days stretched into weeks, weeks into months, and it became clearer and clearer that nobody would be coming, that they were all that was left?

Eventually the stores ran out, and they'd had to leave the relative security of the remote mountain hideout the tribe had established.

Din, their best pilot and the most trained for hunting, had started to go out to do bounty hunting jobs so that they could all eat. One of the others had often come with him on expeditions to find better places for them all to stay. For a few weeks, a month, sometimes two. Until people got suspicious about the amount of Mandalorians they were suddenly seeing.

Alor had given as many as possible identical armour. They'd had strict rules about leaving the covert. And while Din went out and struggled on his own with the knowledge that if he messed up or died his clan would go hungry, Paz had been forced to stay inside and be protector, trainer and parent at age 20.

They'd finally managed to create some sort of stability on Nevarro.

And then, two months ago, it had happened all over again: an attack, the adults providing cover so the children could be sent into hiding. And Paz gone with them, no matter how much it must have galled him to run. So that he could protect the children and provide at least some stability. So that it was not all left on the shoulders of the 17 and 18 year olds. Like it had been on them the first time.

Din hadn't thought about that before, that his brother had had to go through it twice now, the kids they'd saved back then now the ones to stay behind and sacrifice themselves. On the run with the last remnants of the clan. This time with no Alor to speak with, no other adult to share the load with, and no real way to sustain themselves.

No wonder he was angry that Din hadn't checked in sooner

"Ori'vod," he says as he sits down next to him in the main room of the mine's living quarters. _Big brother._

Paz grunts. The both of them watch the teens teaching the younger kids basic fighting moves.

"Seems we both unexpectedly became single fathers," Din eventually comments.

"Single?"

He doesn't know how to say that Yala isn't his _riduur_ , his partner, without making it obvious how much he wants her to be. Knowledge it's better not to arm his older brother with.

"Yala only just joined us. It was a struggle, doing jobs on my own with the kid."

"Hmm. But she's part of your _aliit_."

Din nods and waits to see if Paz is going to do anything so civil as acknowledge shouting at her for no reason.

"She…?"

Din makes a 'Yes? Continue?' gesture.

"I was pissed you brought an _aruetii_ here," Paz rumbles. An outsider. "Didn't realise she's your _aliit_."

"Mm."

"She coming back?"

"Maybe. Not tonight."

Paz grunts and scratches at his neck, moving as if he might get up.

"I'll go and apologise."

" _No_ ," Din says sharply, just in case Paz got the idea of going to the ship now. Fuck, no. Intruding on where she feels safe does not make for an apology. She'd probably say _anything_ , including 'it's fine, don't worry about it' to appease him enough that he'd leave, and that wouldn't solve anything.

"No?"

"Just—do better. Until she believes you won't do it again."

"Could take a while."

Din shrugs. "Yes."

"Hm."

"I am sorry I was not there when— I thought it was better to get the kid as far away as possible."

Paz lets out a long sigh, his posture easing. His head sinks back to rest against the wall behind them.

"Not your fault. There weren't any good choices for any of us. Shitty consequences all around."

Din grunts, because that about summarised it. He could not have left the child in the hands of the Imperials once he knew what that meant. His clan mates could by Creed not have allowed a child to be recaptured or killed. Their defence would have drawn Imperial attention no matter what.

But the fact is that Paz has been the one dealing with the shitty consequences.

"How can I help?"

Paz huffs.

"Credits. A well-stocked medical droid - the clinic here is full of expired shit I don't know how to use. Another couple of adults so that I'm not the only one trying to teach 'em all they need to know—" Paz sums up.

Din nods. Paz had trained with the heavy infantry, a type of fighter used to working in formation on the battlefield. A useful skillset in a war, but not much good for bounty hunting and not the most practical style to teach the younglings, in this different world. Din is far more used to working alone and without backup. Not to mention all the schooling, the history and culture that they'd already struggled to teach the children the first time around, when they had the combined knowledge of Paz and Din and Alor.

"—Alor here," Paz is still going, "and while I'm wishing for impossible things, Mandalore freed and our people restored."

"Not all of those things are impossible," Din points out. "For one thing, I met somebody on the road. Drijak. Older houseless Mandalorian knocking about on some little moon. Raised his family on Mandalore and then lost them."

"You wanna ask him to come help here?" Paz lifts his head to look at Din, sounding interested.

"He might be open to it. Though I should warn you, he's a liberal with the helmet."

Paz just grunts, not seeming as put off by that as Din has expected. He asks what he's been wanting to know for months now.

"Was it as strict as I remember, in the Corps? 'No living thing'? Not with young children, not with _riduur_?"

Paz shook his head slowly.

"Wasn't much occasion to see the exceptions in the Corps, was there?"

"No."

"The final schism of _Kyr'tsad_ wasn't long before you were Found. The last of those with young children, with bonded partners, left. Things changed a lot. The family structure was gone. We weren't really a tribe, afterward. We were a fighting corps."

Din doesn't have many memories from his first year with _Kyr'tsad_ \- Death Watch. Learning the language had been a struggle and everything had been new and daunting while he tried to catch up with the training Mandalorian kids had received from a much earlier age.

He does remember fiercely missing his mother, and asking Paz about his mother. That subject had been firmly off limits with both Paz and their Buir, and he realises only now that perhaps she hadn't died like he'd assumed back then. Perhaps she'd left in that final split. When the tribe had gotten that much more intense about the warrior code.

Din nods. "And then we were on the run and there wasn't exactly room to teach about helmet exceptions."

"Hm." Paz shifts uneasily. "Would have been better if we had. Sometimes there's no other choice than to take off the gear."

Din feels sideswiped at hearing Paz say something like that. As if Paz did not think it was the gravest sin, the thing that would erase somebody's identity. As if Din hadn't been ten minutes and one clever droid away from dying of head trauma because taking off his helmet for treatment had seemed like the worse option.

As if half the reason he hasn't talked himself into taking his helmet off with Ad'ika and Yala isn't how he thought his remaining clan members would react.

Paz seems like he has something on his mind. Din waits him out, keeping his face turned toward the playing children.

"Like when you're on the run," Paz says, with just a hint of hesitation. "Or trying to earn some credits to keep a bunch of kids fed."

It suddenly strikes Din that Paz seems unsure about how Din will react, and that it _matters_.

He's—Din doesn't—it feels like that exploding e-webb all over again, the shockwave of the realisation blasting him off his feet. All this time he's been… he's been trying to live up to his brother. Trying to be as good, as tough, as _Mandalorian_ as Paz, who was born into it, who had a head start, who had the Vizla name, who had grown up fluent in Mando'a instead of still struggling with it into his teen years. Who'd always seemed to Din like he didn't have to work so hard for the approval of their _buir_.

Even in more recent years, with both of them long grown, there had been that undercurrent of judgement, of if Din, on his own so much, was properly following the Creed. Of if he was worthy of the name.

Or—that's how Din had felt it, anyway.

It blows his mind to realise that Paz is similarly concerned with Din's judgement.

" _When necessity commands it_ " Din quotes Drijak. "I guess we kind of forgot about that part, huh?"

Paz's posture relaxes minutely.

"Yeah."

They're both silent for a while. Din thinks about that pile of armour in the tunnels of Nevarro. Wonders if there are people who got away and survived the attack by taking off their armour. Are they now struggling to start a life on their own, while the remains of the tribe so desperately need them? All because their tribe had somehow convinced itself that taking off your helmet would in one fell swoop divorce you from your tribe, your identity, your soul?

"You've not taken yours off with your aliit?"

"As I said, it's new. Yala has only just joined us."

Paz tilts his head with a clearly implied 'sure'.

"You better get a _riduurok_ out of that woman before she sees your ugly mug," he says gravely.

A _marriage_ agreement? Din blinks at that, but then again, she did just agree to stay with them.

Maybe.

"Get dented, brother."

"Not likely, but there's hope for you."

"So," Din gets them back to a more comfortable subject. "I'll see if Drijak is interested."

Paz nods.

"I don't have a lot of credits I don't need for fuel or repairs, but I can get you some essentials, and we've got a big chunk of dried bantha meat aboard I'd be happy to offload. You could at least be set for protein for a while."

"That'd help."

"As for a med droid, I'll keep an eye out for one. For now—Yala is a medic. I'll ask if she'll…"

"Don't ask for me. Ask for the kids."

Din nods. Paz isn't really in a position to ask that kind of favour, even though it wouldn't surprise him if she'd still help him. "I'll ask."

Yala is asleep in the hammock with the kid when he comes into the cockpit. The holoscreen is showing the menu of the same vid she intended to put on hours ago. He glances at her cup. It's empty, but the bottle is still at the same level. Just exhaustion then.

She blinks languidly in the low light when he ducks around to in front of her.

"I'll take him," Din says in a low voice, and they gently transfer Ad'ika to him and then to the bassinet, where he stretches adorably and then continues to sleep peacefully.

Yala holds the hammock open for him in wordless invitation, and he settles in next to her. She shifts to make space for him as if they've been doing this all along, as if this isn't the closest he's been to her in six years. Good thing he'd taken a moment to shed his armour when he came back to the ship. He can feel her pressed warmly all along his side; the angles of the hammock push them together. It feels natural to put his arm around her shoulders and oh, she feels good there, she feels _right_. Her arm burrows between the hammock and his lower back, and she curls her fingers into the material of his mid-layer shirt over his far hip.

He sighs in satisfaction, pulling her a little closer still.

"How did it take us so long to start touching again?" she wonders after what feels like a long time, sleepily, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.

Din has been wondering that too. It feels so natural now, like two magnets that have finally found the right polarity.

"You were always—" he starts. "I thought you didn't... "

She huffs and nips his shoulder through his shirt.

"You offset our sleeping times so you were never alone with me without the kid."

"That just seemed—" he stops, because yes, it had been a practical decision, and he'd _noticed_ that it stopped them from spending those quiet late night hours together. He'd just… thought it was unfortunate. He'd never thought she might take it as an active choice to avoid her.

"You also the one who sent me to bed when I finally scraped up the guts to flirt with you."

"You were drunk."

"Hardly."

"You were so—" he didn't know how to put it. Funny? Rapid-fire? Flippant? "I didn't think you meant it."

Though, admittedly he'd been far too slow on the draw there, especially the next morning. He definitely shouldn't have let her apologise.

She turns her face into the fabric of his shirt and curses in a language he doesn't understand, a growly sort of sound low in her throat. She shakes her head a little as if she's exasperated. Din curls his fingers around her shoulder, pulling her into him.

"Didn't think I meant it," she repeats with a soft chuckling.

"Well… I was worried if I took it seriously—you'd regret. That you, you'd want to leave."

"Mm. That's fair," she concedes.

"I did enjoy that night," he tells her. "I should have said—that. Not let you apologise."

"Not even for the line about the can opener?"

Din laughed softly.

" _Especially_ not for that line."

She hums, and pushes against him, shifting around awkwardly in the confines of the hammock. Finally he catches on to what she's trying to do and puts his hands on her waist to help her sit astride of his lap.

It's not a sexy move, despite the subject they were just on, but the way she seeks comfort is maybe almost better.

She sinks against him, arms wrapping around his back, nuzzling her face into the collar of his shirt.

Fuck, how he's _longed_ for this, to feel her sweet soft weight on him, the warm pressure.

"That what you were after, Cyare?"

"Mm.. yes." She lets out a bone deep sigh of comfort.

"I don't want to stop touching anymore," he says after what feels like a long silence.

"Mm," she agrees. "I like your plan."

He rubs her back, a little too fast to be soothing—he doesn't want her to doze off before he's gotten this next subject out of the way.

"I'm sorry for—for when we first went in, today. I should not have let that happen," he says softly. It's been bothering him all evening. She relies on him to keep her safe, and he just—stood there.

She's gone tense, but she doesn't say anything.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he eventually asks, pitching his voice low and gentle.

She clearly heard him, but she's silent for long enough that he stops expecting an answer. Eventually she sighs.

"I was.. jumpy, when they brought me to Silken. The attack on my ship was—"

Din doesn't remember when she told him, but he knows that she was the only survivor of that pirate attack. He nods and lightly strokes her hair. She takes a breath as if to speak several times while he waits.

"Ghrikk had this… enforcer," she finally rushes, like she needs to get the words out before they can get away. "Big loud man. A medic's valuable on Silken, Ghrikk would have had his head if he'd—but he liked to threaten. Make me flinch. When I did, he'd just get—it would just be worse."

Oh. Din can see the shape of this, and he just feels like more of an asshole for not stepping in front of her.

"One day there was just—distance in my head, I guess," she whispers. "Like my mind found an escape hatch."

He hums, because it sounds familiar, though in different circumstances. He has definitely felt himself take distance from situations while they happen. Sometimes it's in his favour, sometimes it isn't.

"It's not something I… I _do_. I don't even always notice. It just—happens."

"Thank you for telling me," he finally thinks to say. "Paz wanted to apologise."

She tenses up, and he's glad he judged that right, that she would hate that.

"I told him to behave like a civilised person until you believed he is one."

She huffs an amused breath, and he strokes her back, glad to feel her relax.

"How are things with your people?" she whispers.

" _You_ are my people," he says, to remind the both of them. "You agreed this afternoon. Remember? No take-backs."

She chuckles against him, arms tightening for a moment making it clear she's not looking for a take-back.

Din isn't sure where the desire to kiss her comes from, given that he has never kissed anyone. How can he feel so sure that it's what he needs when he doesn't know what it feels like? It just… it seems so excruciatingly intimate in a way he's never done with anybody, and he wants—he wants that. With her.

He strokes her back in long, slow passes, enjoying the way she melts into him, torpid from the heightened emotions of earlier in the day. Her breathing slowly evens out into sleep.

He could—it would now be…

He talked to Paz about the Creed, and that reassured him that taking off his helmet in private will not make him _dar'manda_ to the remains of the tribe. He will be able to fulfill his duties to them. Yala has agreed she is part of his aliit. It is too early to speak of a _riduurok_ , a pair bond, but given the way she is seeking comfort with him right now, he has reason to believe it would not be unwelcome.

He hasn't believed for some time now that he would become _dar'manda_ if he took off the helmet with his aliit in the privacy of his ship, or that he wouldn't be able to put it back on.

What's stopping him? It's simultaneously a decision he's already made, a _when_ not an _if_ , and a momentous act. He wants to take the helmet off, to feel what it's like to be with her without it, but he's not sure if he wants to be seen.

But— they are both asleep. It's dark here in the cockpit. He could… there's no reason not to. He won't have to explain, or even be looked at. He can just… see how it feels.

He reaches up and disengages the seal of the helmet.

It still takes him a couple of minutes of deep breathing to feel ready to lift the helmet off his head. He checks again, but both Yala and the kid are breathing deep and regular, solidly asleep.

All right.

As he carefully puts the helmet within arm's reach, Din wonders what he _expected_ to feel. That some part of him would fade or disappear when he took it off? That he would feel his connection to his people dissolve? Apparently at some level he still thought that this moment would change him.

Instead there's just… _more_. More to hear and smell and feel. He knew Yala bartered for some kind of hair oil and that she uses it, but he hadn't realised it was scented with something warm and spicy. He also hadn't known there's just the tiniest hint of a snore to her inhales, too soft for the helmet's sound filter to pick up.

He tilts his head so his cheek rests against her hair, and that's a strange feeling; he's scruffy, hasn't bothered to shave in a while, so her curls catch his facial hair. He wonders if she'll like the look of it.

It's a strange experience to care about what his face looks like. He never has before.

Yala shifts a bit and then her nose is pressed under his jaw. She sighs into his neck, and he shivers at the warm, damp breath touching skin that so rarely feels anything but the isolation of the helmet.

It's strange to think that for all that he missed her—first in those six years apart, even though he'd tried not to, and then since she came aboard but had seemed so untouchable to him—and yet he hadn't really known what he was missing at all.

He presses a kiss to her temple, and her face scrunches up a little in her sleep, his facial hair tickling her. Din wraps his arms closer around her and settles more comfortably into the hammock. Now he _does_ know what he's been missing, he has no intention of giving it up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your lovely comments! It's always such a boost for me to be able to share this with you guys.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spend long, breathless seconds just looking at each other. 
> 
> "Was that so bad?" he can't help teasing, even though this affects him too, his stomach feels light and he's feeling oddly breathless.
> 
> "No," she whispers, still looking at him, her eyes roaming his face. It's like she's looking into him. He feels naked. He's never felt so seen, and it's a new feeling, but welcome, with her. "It's.. it's a good face."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's here, The Softest Chapter
> 
> Thanks to Tyellas for stuntreading

Din wakes up from a shove to the chest, his whole body jolting, and it takes a confused split-second to work out that he's in a hammock, _they_ are in a hammock. He fell asleep with Yala in his lap, and they ended up stretching out lengthwise in their sleep. 

He's not being attacked. Yala woke him in her sudden effort to struggle herself upright. She's now sitting on the edge of the hammock, her feet on the floor, her head in her hands. Din wonders if she had a bad dream, to wake so suddenly. Though it _is_ morning, the cockpit filled with the grey light of early dawn, and she often wakes early. 

"Are you okay?" he asks. 

It's not until he hears his own voice, unfiltered, that Din remembers.

He took off the helmet, last night. 

He didn't put it back on. 

Yala makes a noise of shocked outrage, of _how can you possibly ask that?_ and he sits up, because the problem is not as evident to him as it apparently is to her. His hand comes to rest on her shoulder, and she lifts her head, determinedly turning her head away from him. Avoids looking at him. 

"You—the, the creed—why did you—?!" 

Oh. 

Somehow he'd thought she'd be pleased. 

"I didn't want to—it shouldn't have been me to... " she trails off. 

Oh. _Oh_. He finally realises that she thinks she's the one who broke his vow for him. That this is a violation she did to him. 

"Whatever I thought would happen when I took the helmet off in front of another—happened when I made the decision to do it last night," he says gently, stroking her shoulder. "You looking at me now doesn't make any difference. I chose to do this."

"But I—you" she stutters, face still turned away. What he can see of her cheek is flushed a darker brown. "When…"

It occurs to Din rather belatedly that he never told her about his changing feelings about the helmet. A lot has changed for him since he explained it to her six years ago. She could probably have used some indication that this was coming. 

"I've been thinking about it for a while. My view of the Creed was narrow and unquestioned. I came to the decision that I can take off my helmet with members of my own _aliit_ ," he says, stroking a finger along her jawline. "With my child. With my _Cyare_."

"What does that word mean?" she eagerly grabs onto the distraction. 

"I think you already know what it means."

She makes a soft noise of concession that he thinks means 'maybe.'

He's smiling, he can't help it. He'd known she was conscientious about supporting him in keeping the creed. She'd made it very clear she hadn't wanted him to take it off for her. He just hadn't expected this kind of reaction. 

"Yala, will you please look at me?"

He's been lightly tracing his finger along her jaw, and now he slips it under her chin and gently turns her face toward him. 

Her eyes are huge, and a much warmer brown than his visor had shown him. They latch on to his face, and he strokes her cheek with his thumb. She has a spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks that he's never seen through the visor's filters, or last night in the low light. 

They spend long, breathless seconds just looking at each other. 

"Was that so bad?" he can't help teasing, even though this affects him too, his stomach feels light and he's feeling oddly breathless.

"No," she whispers, still looking at him, her eyes roaming his face. It's like she's looking into him. He feels naked. He's never felt so seen, and it's a new feeling, but welcome, with her. "It's.. it's a good face."

It's absurd, to be so pleased that she likes his face. He's never—he wouldn't have thought it would matter so much to him, but there's a warm glow in his stomach from the way her eyes linger on him. 

"My brother said I should get a _riduurok_ out of you before I showed you my face," he chuckles, because why not? He's already shown her his face, he can show her how he feels. It can hardly come as a surprise now. When she frowns, he adds lightly, "A pair bond."

Her mouth forms an o shape as she takes that in, and her cheeks flush a darker brown. 

"Did he think your face would help or hinder?" she asks finally. 

Din huffs fond amusement, because she is, as usual, focusing on the thing he least wants her to focus on. She tilts her head to the side. 

"I mean, did he imagine I'd say no, or say yes for the wrong reason?"

"I quote _'Better get a riduurok out of that woman before you show her your ugly mug_ '."

She scoffs. "Shows what he knows." 

Her hand comes up so she can trace his brow, the line of his nose. Her fingertip lightly skims his lips, follows the scruff on the line of his jaw. He tries not to shiver.

"So why didn't you follow his advice?" she asks, still completely focused on his face. 

"Seemed early," he shrugs, more nonchalant than he feels. "I haven't even kissed you yet."

"Yet? Are you saying you have plans?" a dimple appears in her cheek when the corner of her lips ticks up in a half smile. 

"I'm new to kissing," he admits. "Seems like there might be a learning process."

"Yeah?" She traces the shell of his ear with a light fingertip, and he shivers. "But you're a smart man. flexible… always ready for anything… thinks on his feet. Bet you're a fast learner…." She looks at the ceiling, making a show of considering it. "I guess that's worth sticking around for."

" _Mir'sheb._ "

He doubts she knows that means 'smartass' but his tone must make it clear enough, because she widens her eyes at him in mock innocence. He can't hold back any longer, he slips his hand to the nape of her neck and gently tugs her closer. She comes easily, grinning at him, and he grins back like he does, like he always has. She stills though, resisting his pull to just look at him. There's a kind of wonder in her eyes, and he realises it's the first time she's actually seen it. 

"Is _that_ what I was missing all this time?" there's a delighted rise in her voice at seeing his grin, and oh, it is already worth it, taking off the helmet, just for this. 

"Come here," he pulls her within reach and then, finally, presses his lips to her forehead. She goes still and pliant, exhaling with a happy hum. Her forehead is warm and soft. She smells really good this close, of the hair oil with something else underneath. Would it be strange to press his nose closer and smell her? Nothing in his life has prepared him for this. Is smelling each other a thing people do, if they're not wearing helmets, or is it weird? Maybe. Probably. 

Maybe later. 

For now he moves down and presses his lips to one cheek, then the other, and then finally, finally her lips. 

Din isn't sure what he expected this to feel like. He's seen people kiss and it's always seemed kind of… vulgar to him, pressing mouths together, the… saliva involved. To say nothing about the idea of tongues touching, which seems far more intimate than actual sex. 

Her arms tremble from holding herself up over him, and they shift around a little in the hammock so they're both on their sides, faces intimately close. She brushes her lips to his for the briefest of moments, barely long enough to feel. Does it again, several times, teasing little kisses that make him want _more_.

Oh, she _really_ likes it when he cups the back of her head and holds her still for his explorations. The low, throaty sound she makes is one he has been fantasising about for the past six years. He can't focus on much but the kissing, but his body is paying attention. Her lips are so soft, and there's a light pull on his lower lip, just the slightest bit of suction. It's making him drag in a deep breath through his nose. 

She smiles against his lips, which he can _feel_ and his stomach goes light at the realisation. It's as if she is breathing her happiness directly against his mouth and he wants her to never stop.

He jolts at a light, slick touch against his lips. There's a full body shiver when he realises that's her _tongue_. She lightly traces the seam of his lips and he relaxes, touches her back with the tip of his own tongue, and _fuck_ , this is more intimate than any sex he's ever had, he needs to break away to catch his breath. 

She makes a little pleading noise and chases his lips, and there's a warm swell in his chest when he realises she's just as breathless and flushed as he is. 

Which is when several things start to happen at once. There's a pounding on the hull of the ship, a comms hail, and Ad'ika letting out a startled, warbling cry as he wakes.

Yala huffs out an amused breath and touches her forehead to his for a moment. Such a casual touch that gives him pause because it feels like so much _more_ than doing it with the helmet. Then she frees herself from the hammock while he's still laying back, feeling sideswiped, out of breath, and deeply aroused. 

"Here, you handle him," she says, putting the kid down on his chest, stuffed frog toy in hand. Din's arm comes up without his input to support the kid, body and mind switching track. 

He hears Yala flip the switch of the comms while he shushes his son.

"Razor Crest." 

_"Oh. Um."_ It's one of the older kids, judging by the voice. Adia? Din thinks that's her name. " _We were told we could come pick up, uh, bantha meat?_ "

Right. Yes. He should have mentioned that, though he can't imagine she would disagree.

"Oh, you've come for Varik? I'll be right down."

She slips past the hammock with a fond look, and disappears to the main compartment, closing the cockpit door behind her. It's only when the cockpit is quiet that he realises he's still not wearing his helmet, and that the kid is sitting on his chest, studying him thoughtfully. 

He has wondered in the past if the kid would recognise him without helmet, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. Perhaps whatever magic lets him communicate directly into Din's brain also lets him recognise Din with or without his face covered. 

"Hello my little lad."

The words come to him unbidden, but not unexpected. He has never felt more exposed, and more relaxed with it than he ever could have thought possible. He chose this, chose to take off the helmet and share himself with his aliit. It feels like it's time. 

"Kuiil," he tells the kid. Those big ears perk up. "Kuiil'ika. Is that—may we call you that? If you ever tell me it should be another, I'll change it. Yes?"

The little one lets out a happy trill sound and shakes his stuffed frog.

"Kuiil'ika?"

More shaking of the frog, and then an unusually clear mental image from the kid's point of view, of a large gloved hand coming up to drop a silver ball into his green fingers. 

" _Kuiil. Ni kyr'tayl gai sa'ad,_ " Din says solemnly. _I know your name as my child._

The Mandalorian adoption vow only makes explicit what has already been true in his mind for months, perhaps from before even Alor told him that they were a clan of two. This is, irrevocably, officially, his choice to go beyond 'as his parent' and to _be_ his parent, with all that it entails and for all the time it may last. 

He leans up enough to lightly press his forehead against that of the child and thinks, as focused and as clear as he can, _you are my son. I will take care of you as long as I can, even if that is only a small part of your life. We are aliit._

He gets the image of the silver ball again, and then a weird, light-stomach swoop and Yala's upturned face. There's a sense of weightlessness and utter joy, and _oh_ , this is what the little one feels when she throws him up into the air. _Happy_. 

It's as close to an answer or reaction to the proceedings he'll get. Kuiil'ika gently bats at him with the stuffed frog, and Din chuckles and lies back. 

He notices Yala in the door opening, looking at them with so much unguarded affection that it takes his breath a little. 

"Sorry, I wasn't sure if it was—" she gestures vaguely, "private."

"No, no, join us." He sits up sideways into the hammock, the kid cradled against his chest, and gestures to the space next to him. She climbs in and settles in under his arm, pressed close against his side.

"It was the adoption vow," he explains. 

"And you named him?"

"Yes. Kuiil. Kuiil'ika." 

He's talked to her about possible names before, and she knows who Kuiil was. 

"Congratulations," she leans up to press a kiss to his cheek, then down to kiss the top of the child's head. Din sits there blinking for a moment at the feeling of her lips against his face, so casual and thoughtless. 

The kid reacts by shoving his stuffed frog at her mouth.

"Why are you always trying to feed me frogs, huh? Do I look ill-fed to you?" she grabs her belly and jiggles it. "I didn't think so."

She sits back with a put-upon sigh and turns her face forward, so that the kid sees her in profile. 

"Fine. I'll eat the frog."

The kid squeals, and she accepts the toy and does the thing where she 'eats' it by letting it disappear behind her face while she pretends to chew and swallow. Kuiil'ika thinks this is the best game ever and bounces excitedly, giggling.

Din is smiling too. He admires this, her playfulness with the kid. It doesn't come naturally to him at all, but maybe it's something he can learn.

"And then you're surprised he tries to stuff live frogs into your face?" 

"Not surprised, just dismayed," she grins. 

Her eyes keep catching on his face. 

"Does it feel strange when I look at you?"

Yes. No. 

"A little."

"It's hard to resist. I've spent a lot of time guessing at your moods."

His face must show her something, because she touches his arm, a quick, gentle squeeze.

"Not a complaint. It's just nice to fill in the blanks. Tell me if it's… too much, or something."

"I…" he struggles for words. All of this is new, being so open, feeling so observed. "I like it when you see me."

She smiles, and it's like the sun rising after a month of nighttime. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Requests, questions or simply want to chat about this series? Come see me on [tumblr!](https://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/)


	9. Chapter 9

Din has the helmet back on when they go inside the new covert. He and Paz did discuss that they need to… need to change the rules. Need to establish that there are valid reasons to take off the helmet, and that they don't mean you stop being a Mandalorian. Their culture is not contained only by the helmet. Neither of them is sure how to begin something like that. These kids have been raised with the strictest explanation of the creed since they were found. Do you just… tell them you were wrong about that? Din has no idea. He rather hopes that introducing Drijak will get things moving. 

He carries the baby into the living quarters. He's got a vague thought that if Yala has another run in with Paz, he'll at least be able to stop the kid from choking his brother. He might not stop him _too_ quickly, but that's between Din and his kid. 

Paz, however, is on his best behaviour. Their talk last night seems to have resolved a lot for both of them. He's sitting at one of the long bench tables—this place was set up for many more than the nine people currently living here—and doesn't get up when Din and Yala walk in, just nods at them in greeting. It's rude to Mandalorians unless they are extremely familiar, but it means that he isn't looming and she can decide how close she wants to get. 

Din feels her back muscles ease under his hand when she takes in the situation and, yeah, that was a good choice. 

"Everybody?" Din calls for attention. Eight helmets turn to him. 

The younger ones are free to put their helmet on and off as they please, but Din suspects they've been wearing them a lot ever since they had to flee.

"This is my aliit." He gestures. "Yala," she gives a little wave, "and my son. Kuiil'ika."

The kids glance at Paz, who nods, and introduce themselves one by one. 

There's Jai, a seven year old boy who is very eager to tell them about the little lizards he found in one of the other rooms. Din suspects he and Kuiil'ika will get along just fine. 

His sister Hiri is twelve and clearly exasperated with hearing about lizards. Her helmet is heavily scraped on one side, and her right arm is in a sling.

There are Moric, eleven, and Nand, twelve, neither of whom seem to sit still for even a moment. 

One of the smallest kids shrinks when the attention comes to them, staying mute.

"That's Teena," says Abia, the oldest at 18. "She's nine. And a little shy."

Moric giggles something that sounds like 'a little?' and Nand swats at him. Then Tarc, the oldest boy, and the self-appointed caretaker of the bunch, jumps in before it can devolve into a squabble. 

"Do you want to go meet them?" Din asks Kuiil'ika. "I hear there are lizards."

The kid makes eager noises, so he sets him on the floor and watches him toddle off determinedly toward the youngest children, who had been playing a game with pebbles on a floor grid drawn with chalk. Maybe he should have brought in the Mudhorn toy, Din is sure his son (his son!) could convince some of these kids to tow him around. Tarc encourages Kuiil'ika to join their game, and Din figures they'll probably be fine. 

He glances to the side, trying to gauge how Yala is feeling. She looks relaxed enough, smiling as Kuiil'ika tries to pick up multiple pebbles in his little hands. 

The two of them settle down opposite Paz at the table. 

"So." Din begins. "Here's your medic. What do you need?" He really wants them to be able to talk to each other. Hopefully putting her into her role as medic will help. 

Paz sighs, turning to Yala.

"Tarc had some training from our Doc, before--" Yala nods. "I got some first aid training. But the stock in the infirmary here has expired and I think some of the kids have things they don't want to tell me about."

Yala takes a deep, slow breath, and then hums in acknowledgement, and her face is doing something Din isn't sure he fully understands. "I'll take some time for everybody, and I can see what I can do for your vital supplies. We also need a restock." She turns to Din. "That's gonna be even more of a priority now."

"First chance," he nods. 

"Can the kids take off their helmet with me?" Yala asks Paz. 

He turns to Din, because… yeah, this is an issue that needs to begin here, isn't it? They can't let this wait for Drijak.

"Only Tarc and Abia have taken the Creed," Paz says slowly. "So the kids are free with their helmet in any case."

Yala pointedly looks at the eight kids, all of whom are wearing helmets, and back to Paz. 

"...but I'll remind them that it's their own decision."

"Mm," she nods. 

Paz addresses the kids a moment later, stressing that it's up to them to decide if to take the helmet off when talking to the medic. Din wonders if Yala hears the implication that it's also not up to _her_ to tell them to take helmets off.

Perhaps she does. When Paz is done talking, she adds, "Everything you say to me is confidential. That means I won't tell anybody else what you shared with me, not even Paz. Even if I'm very worried, I'll still always ask you first if I can tell him. Okay?"

Paz's head jerks around when she starts speaking, and when she's done she meets his gaze. Din wonders if she's trying to prove something here, after last night. And if so, if it is to him, or to Paz, or to herself. 

"Tarc, right?" Yala says to the young man. "Paz told me you have some medical training."

Tarc is seventeen, lean and with armour still a little big on him. Din doesn't know him well; he has spent very little time with the tribe since the purge, but he remembers the kid from when he was adopted before then. 

"I've been trying to pick up more, but it's mostly books," Tarc admits. 

"Can you show me what you have for a clinic?" she asks him, and the young man eagerly precedes her. 

Din follows out of curiosity. And, if he's honest, a desire to see her work. He loves watching her get into that zone. The comfortable competence of it is strangely compelling. 

Tarc shows her into the little room. There's a screen shielding a corner, a bed, a chair and a shelf and not much more. Yala comes to a halt in front of the shelf and inspects what's laid out there. Tarc shifts nervously as she silently examines the supplies. There's actually quite a lot, from what Din can tell, more than many a backwater clinic he's seen over the past month. A stack of bacta patches, couple of jars of the stuff, a cauterizer, bandages, a pouch with pills, a pouch with little vials full of liquid. 

"You were saying you've had trouble with wounds not healing?" Yala says absently, cutting a bacta patch in half and pulling the protective film off one side. 

Tarc glances at Din in surprise, because nobody has in fact said that. Then he nods slowly, realises she isn't looking at him, and says "Uh, yes."

She hums thoughtfully and licks the bacta patch. Tarc visibly startles, looks at Din, and then demonstratively turns his head away from Yala. She notices and raises her eyebrows and, yeah, this one's on Din. 

Seeing somebody's tongue is obscene to Mandalorians—how could it not be, that most intimate of hidden body parts? Only Din has not _told_ her that, because he has rather enjoyed seeing her unselfconsciously lick fruit juice from her fingers and wine from the rim of her cup and didn't want to make her feel uneasy. And, if he's honest, it's been a secret thrill for him even though he knows it isn't meant to titillate. 

Seems rather late to explain now. 

Yala apparently isn't in a mood to be patient with Mandalorian sensibilities. 

"A medic is missing out on a hell of a lot of vital information if they rule out smell or taste. Get behind the screen."

Her tone brooks no argument. Tarc goes. 

"Take this," she holds out the second half of the bacta patch beyond the screen. "Smell it, then bite the tip of your tongue and lick the patch."

She opens the small kit she brought from the Razor Crest, the 'just in case' kit rather than the big clinic crate, and takes out one of her own precious bacta patches. 

"Now do the same with this one." She hands off that patch, and then goes back to the shelf, opening the bacta jars and smelling them. 

After a moment Tarc makes a surprised noise. 

"Notice anything different?" Yala asks, attention on the jars. Din can tell from her face that what she's finding isn't good news. 

"Smells different…. it _tingles_!" 

It's weird hearing the kid without his helmet. 

"Okay. Now smell these and tell me what you can conclude."

She hands the jars behind the screen, and Din can't help it, he stops her with a touch as she passes him. Her questioning look makes him wish that she could see his smile, could see how proud and fond he feels right now. Seeing her step into the role of teacher does something inexplicable to his insides. She can't see his smile, and he doesn't want to speak where Tarc can hear, so he bends down for a quick, gentle forehead touch that makes her eyes light up a little bit.

"They smell the same as the first bacta patch," Tarc says from behind the screen. Then a moment later, "taste kind of the same too."

Yala smiles at this unasked for show of initiative. 

"So, it's dead. This stuff is all at least 10 years old, bacta just doesn't stay potent that long."

Tarc comes from behind the screen, helmet back on, his posture crestfallen. 

"So none of it is any good?"

"For slapping on a scrape if you need something to cover it on the go, there's worse options. It'll at least keep it clean. For actually healing anything you're better off leaving a wound open to the air than putting this stuff on it." 

"Oh."

She reaches up to pat consolingly at his shoulder. 

"We'll see who doesn't mind if you're in the room today. And I think I have a 'Beyond Bacta' coursebook on my holopad I can share."

Din takes Tarc along to retrieve the big clinic kit. The boy looks dejected, shoulders slumping. 

"Cheer up, kid," Din tells him. "You didn't know what you didn't know. Nobody blames you for it."

"We're already so…" he makes a hopeless gesture. "I thought I could contribute something. What's going to happen to us? We can't—Paz is… he says we'll rebuild, but we're barely even—"

Words crowd into Din's throat, because he remembers this feeling all too well, from when he was in Tarc's shoes, feeling the pressure of an entire tribe on his shoulders. He has no idea what would have helped to hear, back then. Except—

"You're not in this alone."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to Byrch/Tyellas for the stuntreading

Chapter 10

When Yala has her setup the way she likes it, she turns up in the big room where everybody is hanging out. There's a stew going in the cooking corner with a pan full of bantha meat, and Abia has made tea. 

"Is your brother going to let me treat that wound on his shoulder?" she asks under her breath, slipping onto the bench next to Din. 

He straightens up, surprised. 

"What?"

"He's got a wound on his shoulderblade and it's infected."

Din looks at his brother, who is still sitting at the table, tools spread out in front of him, fixing a broken hinge on his bracer. He looks fine.

"How do you know he's injured?"

She huffs like it should be obvious. 

"He's favouring that arm. And his back plate isn't on right."

Now she mentions it, Paz back armour is buckled on very loosely, the angle not quite right. Din is fascinated; she's met his brother only very briefly, and she's only been across the table from him. How can she possibly know when Din didn't notice a thing?

"But how can you know it's infected?"

"Because I can _smell_ it!" she hisses, annoyed. 

"Huh. I didn't mean to..." Din makes a vague gesture. He sees her expression and adds, "I don't doubt you. I'm just… surprised."

He suddenly remembers the way she breathed in when Paz had said he thought some of the kids were hiding injuries. Could you really smell something like that?

She squares her shoulders and gets up, going around the table toward Paz, and it's too late to interfere now, Din can just sit and watch. Sometimes he thinks he knows her well enough to predict what she'll do, and sometimes he's reminded that there are unexpected sides to anybody, even somebody as seemingly open as her. 

Paz looks up in surprise when she comes to a halt next to where he's sitting. She says something too low to overhear, and then a moment later he is up and heading to the clinic, Yala following him. Din follows too. 

"What did you want to show me?" Paz asks, once inside. Yala stays in the door opening. 

"I've got some supplies and a lesson on wound treatment for you and Tarc, but first I want to see that shoulder."

Paz looks up sharply. 

Din can't see her face, he's behind her in the hallway, but he can picture her raised-brow expression well enough. The 'are you going to deny that to my face?' look. He's still surprised when Paz sighs and nods.

"Get yourself un…" she handwaves. "Uncanned. Knock on the door when you're ready for me to come in," she says, and comes out to close the door. 

They're alone in the hallway for a moment. Din can't help it, he wants to touch her—it's like now they've started touching he can't stop. He's not even wearing his gloves today. Just.. forgot to put them on. 

Din draws her against his chest and she makes a little hum when he puts his hand on the nape of her neck and tucks her head under his chin. His hand is big enough that his fingertips touch the side of her throat, and he's a little startled to feel her heart pounding. 

He remembers that thought from earlier, wondering if she was trying to prove something. 

"Do you want me to stay?" he offers. 

She takes a deep breath, as if some feeling fills her up to the brim, and presses a kiss to the top of his chest plate. The gesture makes him smile. 

"I'll need an assistant. Paz can decide if it should be you or Tarc."

Paz, when asked, sighs and picks Din. It's pretty obvious that he has been hiding this injury from the kids. It's well under what his back plate would normally cover. Proof that he's been taking off his armour and helmet to work down in the village. 

Yala makes a little 'huh' sound when she sees him, and then quickly snaps into her professional gear, pulling on gloves and a face mask. Din makes a mental note to ask about what drew her attention, later. 

Seeing his brother with bare torso startles Din a little. He's still a large man, wide through the shoulders and well muscled, but he's lost a lot of his brawn and looks lean about the ribs. He knew this little group hasn't been eating well, but it's still painful to see the evidence so clearly. All around the poorly applied bacta patch on his shoulder his brown skin is flushed darker, mottled and bruised. 

Yala peels off the patch and whistles long and low when she gets a good look at the wound. Din, given his work and related regular exposure to injuries, could not be called squeamish by any stretch of the imagination, but he still stifles a startled noise in his throat. He unseals his helmet, not particularly eager for this part but still wanting to understand her reaction from before, and draws in a breath. He nearly gags. Small wonder she was so sure. 

"How long have you been working on that? Couple of weeks?"

"Yeah."

"Bacta patch isn't enough for something like this, even if it wasn't expired. It might have closed over the surface while the infection is deeper," she explains. "Probably helped trap it in. On the positive side, must have been just enough life in the bacta to keep the blood poisoning from progressing too much, or you would have keeled over from sepsis by now. So there's that."

Yala absently keeps her left hand on his shoulder while she turns to consider her supplies, and starts putting things out on a tray. Din has seen her do that before, with jumpy people; she doesn't have to re-establish touch every time that way. It hadn't occurred to him before that it also helps her to know exactly where the patient is and when they start to move. 

"All right," she finally comes to a decision. "I'm gonna clean out this pocket of nastiness. When it's as clean as can be, I'm gonna fill it with some of this high-grade bacta I have, and I'll inject the rest. Then you take a long nap, or at least lie still as long as you can stand, to let the bacta do its thing. Then we'll see how it looks after." 

She doesn't say it's the last dose of the precious-high grade bacta she brought from the clinic at _Stellar_ Shipping, far more dear than they can afford to replace. 

Yala is quick and efficient with the cleaning; tapes a special type of disposal bag under the wound and rinses out the wound thoroughly, then does some scraping.

"Gotta make sure the bacta can get everywhere," she explains. "Sit still, please."

Paz grumbles and shifts.

"Can you still feel this? Do you need more numbing? I think I have some Bantha strength stuff I've been saving for a rainy day."

Din huffs an amused breath, because that was an actual joke.

"Are you suggesting that I am the size of a bantha," Paz says carefully, "or that I am so delicate that I need as much sedation as one?"

Din can tell he's toning it down, trying not to sound as intimidating as he would have otherwise when trying to wind somebody up for effect. Yala glances at Din as if to check how to take this. He wishes she could see his smile. He nods slightly, hoping she'll understand his 'he's not going to get angry'. 

"I…. think I'll opt not to answer that," Yala says brightly, and puts another couple shots of the numbing injection around the wound. 

Paz huffs and sits still. 

"Thanks, but I can get into bed all on my own," Paz grouses at the way Yala fusses over positioning him on his cot, on his front with his left arm hanging off, but propped up by a low crate. 

"I need the wound to be as level as possible."

"Fine."

Paz is wearing his helmet, which Din knows from experience is not comfortable when laying on your front, but Yala or Din need to be able to check in on him, so Din supposes Paz is stuck wearing it. 

"Okay, here we go." She fills the wound with the last, precious high-grade bacta she brought from her job at Stellar, and seals the wound off with an expired patch to keep the stuff in place. Paz hisses, the sound blowing out his voice modulator. 

"Long as you can stand. It should stop stinging pretty soon."

Less than five minutes later Paz begins to snore.

Din wouldn't be surprised if his brother hasn't slept properly since the attack. He certainly doesn't wake up for a good few hours. Yala occasionally checks in to make sure he's still breathing, but otherwise leaves him be. 

Din looks in on Yala a couple of times while she talks to the kids one by one and, presumably, sees to their various scrapes. Kuiil'ika alternately plays and takes naps in Yala's thick wool shawl.

He himself takes Tarc and Abia with him for a tactical assessment of the place. Nothing Paz won't already have done, but he needs to know what's needed to make this a sustainable settlement, and he likes to see these things for himself. 

Mostly what they need is people. Din can send credits and supply all he likes, but in the end it's Paz on his own with six kids and these two, who need training more than they need anything else. Training out in the world, taking jobs, making deals. Learning to be self-sufficient so they can help sustain the tribe. 

Din can't stay too long, bringing the kid here is a risk as it is, but he can… well, he can find Drijak and ask if he's willing to come. He can go find out what became of Alor, and bring her here if he can. 

He could offer to take one of the teens with him for a tour. The Razor Crest is already pretty cramped with two and a baby though, and if he's honest… privacy with Yala on the ship sounds pretty good right now. 

They should at least discuss this first. 

He can't stop thinking about kissing her. 

"She went outside," Din’s told halfway the afternoon when he looks in on her and finds the infirmary empty. "Alone."

Kuiil'ika is fine playing with Jai and Teena, so he follows outside, wondering what she went out for.

Yala isn't far from the Razor Crest, picking up heavy sticks and hurling them at a rock wall with as much force as she has in her. Din stays well back until she notices him. 

Her face does something he doesn't really understand, as if she's pleased to see him but also wants him to go the hell away. 

"What's wrong?" Is one of the kids… that's the first thing he thinks about. But she's _angry_. He's never seen her like this. 

She rounds on him with a furious, frustrated gesture.

"I—I care about you a lot, but your culture is really fucking hard to deal with sometimes, you know that?" Her voice is sharp and clipped. "I really need to not be around any of you right now, or I'm gonna say things we'll all regret."

"We are a frustrating people," he agrees, which makes her huffs in reluctant amusement. "In what specific way?"

"The way where you have a kid convinced that walking around with a festering headwound is preferable over taking off their helmet so I can treat it."

Fuck. Seems like however they introduce their revised vision of the creed, they need to start doing it without delay. 

She flings the branch in her hand at the rock wall, where it bursts into splinters with a satisfying crack. 

"If you want somebody to vent to, you should be able to get comms with Suarbi from the ship," he offers. "Or your family perhaps?" The Razor Crest might be an outdated pile of bolts and plates, he has invested in a good, secure long range comms system. 

Her eyes get huge, and then she hugs him, brief and hard. 

"That would be—thank you."

Din wonders if he should put her into contact with Cara. They'd probably have some real stuff to discuss when it comes to dealing with Mandalorians. And he'd forced Cara into leaving him behind rather than taking off his helmet to save him. She'd get Yala's frustration perfectly. On the other hand, the thought of Cara and Yala bonding is… daunting. The chances of coming out of that with his dignity intact aren't huge. 

"Alright. I'll leave you alone."

He gives him the barest rueful quirk of a smile as she pats his arm in passing, headed to the ship. 

He watches her go, her whole body coiled with frustration. Suffering Gods, he's glad he'll never need to put Yala before the choice he'd given Cara—to leave him behind rather than take off the helmet against his will to treat him. Cara had _hated_ it, it had greatly upset her, but she's a warrior. In some way, she'd also understood. Yala would never have. 

Luckily it's no longer a choice he will have to make now he's come to accept that the creed includes _as_ _necessity commands it._ Survival is more important than keeping the helmet on at all cost. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all okay in these Interesting Times. Stay safe, friends.
> 
> Oh! And I will be posting some artings related to this series [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23460097) Have a look!


	11. Chapter 11

Din heads back to the mine and gathers the kids, getting them all in a circle. He still has no idea what to say, and he desperately wishes he could have this discussion with Paz present. But it feels urgent, that he starts this process. They can't just leave this for when— _if_ —Drijak comes here. If they're going to adjust the course of their community, what's left of it, it is their responsibility, his and Paz, to do this.

Mandalore help him, he's about to set a bunch of kids to questioning everything they've ever been taught.

They settle down and look at him expectantly. He knows they are used to being called together for teaching; Din has just never been part of that as an adult.

"When can you take your helmet off?" he begins.

"Never!" the younger kids chant.

"When you're alone," he hears from the older ones.

"What happens if you do take it off when somebody else can see you?"

"You can't put it back on again."

"You stop being a Mandalorian."

"You become dar'manda!"

It's painful to hear all his, but it is exactly what they—and he— we taught. And how. He remembers the questions and chanted answers, recognises the way the kids are eager to show that they have learned and become Mandalorians themselves.

"What if I have a headwound and a doctor needs to help me or I'll die? Can I take if off then?"

"Nooo!" the younger children chant.

Tarc and Abia are quieter. Din wonders if they feel the direction this is going to take.

"I should choose to die rather than let the doctor help me?" he asks seriously.

"Yes!" Moric says decisively.

Hiri makes an uncertain hand motion.

"What if I'm unconscious, and the doctor doesn't know I can never take off the helmet, so they do it to save my life?"

That was maybe too much for the younger kids, but Tarc shifts uneasily.

"What if I don't die, I wake up and the helmet is sitting next to me?" he rephrases. "Am I still dar'manda?"

The younger kids nod, but the enthusiasm for giving the 'correct' answer is gone.

"What kind of doctor doesn't know that about Mandalorians?" Abia questions. "Everybody knows that."

"The galaxy is a big place. Plenty of planets where they only know about us from legends… or not at all." Or that only know about other, more liberal clans. He might have to circle back around to that later.

"I think you'd… still be dar'manda," she says, clearly not liking it.

"Okay. So it doesn't matter if another person took it off against my will? I can't come home?"

The group is subdued. He's touching on uncomfortable thoughts here, thoughts they may themselves have had and then silenced. Like he himself had as a boy, too eager for acceptance to allow himself to question.

Kuiil'ika, who has been entertaining himself by hiding pebbles into the folds of Yala's big wool shawl, comes toddling over to Din, dragging the shawl behind him. Din drapes the fabric into his lap and lifts his son into that cozy little nest, stroking his ear.

He looks around the circle and tries to find the way in, the idea that will let them know that it is okay to question what they've been taught. That he questions too.

"That nearly happened to me," he finally offers. "I decided that I'd rather die with my helmet on than let somebody treat me."

He's got eight visors aimed squarely at him.

"And if I had died the way I wanted to, my son here would have been alone, and probably would have been killed," he decides not to go into Cara's role in this story, just to keep it simple for the kids. "And I would not have come here to help Paz take care of you guys."

The younger kids might not know what that means, but the teenagers have seen the increasing despair of the situation. They couldn't have kept going that much longer without outside support.

"So was it a good decision, to keep my helmet on and die, if that meant I wasn't alive to take care of the people who relied on me?"

Hiri says, very slowly, "I don't… understand. Did you take off your helmet or not? Since you're alive?"

Some of the others nod along with the question.

Yes, okay, that had to be confusing.

"I told my allies to leave my helmet on, that I would rather die than have them take it off to treat my headwound, and I sent them away."

He felt small fingers grasp onto his thumb, and looked down at the kid, wondering if he understood what they were talking about.

"The only reason I did not die, was because there was a nursing droid who convinced me that since it was not alive, letting it lift my helmet to treat me did not violate the creed."

"Yes!" Tarc exclaims, sounding relieved, like he's found the solution to all these uneasy questions. "We need a med droid!"

The other kids all agree. Din tries not to sigh. He can't blame Tarc, but that is not where he was going with this.

Getting restless in his lap, the kid begins to climb his chestplate. Din distractedly offers him foot support when he struggles until he finally reaches Din's shoulder with a triumphant little chirp, settling in between his pauldron and his neck.

The kids are all watching them, and Din refocuses on the conversation. Right. Med droid.

"Okay, that's one solution," he agrees, nodding at Tarc. "Taking the helmet off with a droid means not violating the creed."

He looks around the circle. He really is sorry about what he is having to do here, shaking a foundation that is still new to some of them, especially the younger ones.

"What if you can't afford a med droid?"

They stare at him.

"Could the people who wrote the Creed, way back on Mandalore, have meant that?" he asks quietly, looking around the circle. "That if you're rich enough to afford a medical droid, you get to live. And if you're not, you should just die?"

 _Come on, come on_ , he thinks, hoping that somebody is going to make the jump, that they feel free enough to say it out loud.

"But that was a long time ago, that they wrote the creed," Nand says cautiously. "Wasn't it?"

"Yes," Din encourages. "That's true. Centuries ago, when Mandalore was thriving and there were many millions of our people."

To his surprise it's shy little Teena, not even ten years old, who gets to the thought first. Who looks up sharply, first at him, then at all the others.

"Is there something you want to say, Teena?" he asks gently. "I won't be angry, whatever it is."

The others all look at her too, and she shrinks in on herself, looking even smaller in her oversized armour.

"My m-mum said never to talk to strangers," she says, voice so quiet Din finds himself leaning forward, straining to hear. "But one time my little brother got hurt and I—and I—"

"Did you break the rule to get your little brother help?" Din asked softly.

Teena nodded, helmet bobbing a little loose on her head.

"She didn't know what might happen when she made the rule, so it was good that you thought for yourself, right?" he said, hoping like hell that the girl's mother hadn't punished her for it.

Teena nodded a little.

The younger kids are getting fidgety, and Din decides they'll take a break. He knows he is asking a lot here. Maybe it'll be good for them to have some time to talk among themselves, too.

"I'm going to check in on Paz," he says. "Why don't you guys go play a game of murderball? We'll continue talking in a little while"

Moric and Nand jump up immediately to bolt out, and the others follow a little more slowly, some of them giving Din uncertain looks. Din reaches up a hand to support Kuiil'ika, who is still on his shoulder, while he gets up.

"Paz is going to be _so mad_ at us," he heard Hiri whisper to Abia just before they turn the corner, and. Well, fuck. He should have thought of that sooner, that they're worried about sharing their thoughts when they go directly against what they've been taught all this time. It would have been better to talk with Paz there too.

Din has been trying to let them reach their own conclusions, but he needs to show them that it's okay when they do. He's been concerned that they might condemn him as dar'manda, but he needs to show the way, show that he's ahead of them, and won't judge them.

Paz is still snoring, which is good, but Din wished he could have had a word. They hadn't planned to get into this with the kids quite this fast or this deeply, and he'd prefer to make sure they're on the same page with how he's going about this. He feels pretty far out on a limb here, making this up as he goes along. Paz is asleep and can't help, and it's probably best that Yala keeps well out of this, just so the kids can't jump to any conclusions about all this being caused by his association with her.

He goes outside and sits on a log by the mine entrance, letting Kuiil'ika use him as a climbing rock. The kids play more or less the same sort of games he remembers playing as a kid. This one, apparently called 'Nerfs,' begins with one player in the middle of the field and the others aiming to get across to the other side. Whoever is taken out by the middle player joins them for the next crossing, aiming to get them all on their 'team'. The rules are made up on the spot and they differ for various players. The youngest two can't be tackled to take them out, only lifted. The middle three, Moric, Hiri and Nand, must be tackled to the ground for it to count. Tarc and Abia, since they are bigger and much harder to take down, only have to be tapped.

He can't help but smile as he watches the kids cross the field, imitating a herd of nerfs with their screaming and bellowing while little Teena darts around—she only has to touch another player to convert them, and she's fast and agile on the mossy forest floor. She catches Abia and nine-year old Jai, and then the scheming and the ganging-up really begins.

He's not surprised when, a couple of rounds later, Tarc joins him on the log.

"Does Paz know…" he gestures at his helmet, words hesitant.

"About what I'm talking to you about?" Din doesn't let the kid flounder. "Yeah."

Paz had agreed it was a necessary conversation. They hadn't set a timeline for it, but Din thinks he'll probably be relieved rather than annoyed.

"So he agrees. That it needs to change."

"Yes." Din lets the silence stretch for moment in case there's more, but Tarc just sits there, a little hunched up.

"Did you know he's injured?"

Tarc nods slowly. "Supplies kept disappearing from the shelf. I asked if I could help, but he said no. I figured it was on his head, though I don't know how…"

He didn't know how Paz would have gotten a head wound, under the helmet, Din figures. Fuck, he's glad that's not it, he's pretty sure Paz wouldn't have let Yala treat _that_.

The kid sounded like he was very close to the realisation Paz had been taking off his armour to work in the village. Din doesn't feel like it's his place to confirm it.

"So, we all braiding each other's hair this evening?"

Abia drops down on the moss opposite the two of them, and Kuiil'ika lets out a joyful squeak and begins to clamber to the end of Din's knee, reaching his little hands out to the young woman. She picks him up with an amused huff and turns him upside down, to the kid's chortled amusement.

Din is glad for the distraction, because he needs a moment to catch up with where Abia's mind has gone.

"Paz knows," Tarc tells her, and she nods, looking at Din.

"I get that you're treading carefully with the kids," she says. "But us? Just tell us where you're going with this."

She sounds utterly serious, and Din is sort of relieved to be able to just… tell them.

"We thought we were keeping ourselves safe with the helmet code, back when this tribe.. began." They know the story of how their group had been sent away from battle when Din was their age. "But it hasn't, and it's… it's damaging us now. We can't dismiss people for taking off their helmet, we need people to sustain the tribe. You know how dire things have gotten."

Paz had told him about how the older kids handled the rationing the food, so they definitely did know.

"I nearly died because I refused to let them treat my head injury, and that was a stupid decision. People were relying on me. How could it have been a good death if I let all of you down?"

They were nodding along.

"We can't discard people for doing what's needed. Whether that is to let their wounds be treated, or showing their face to disguise themselves and survive a raid, or taking off the helmet to make money so they can take care of the ones relying on them."

There, that was as close to Paz as he was willing to go.

"And while we're changing, we _shouldn't_ discard people for wanting to connect with the people closest to them. For showing their face to their children. Or their partners." Din adds.

"Has this little guy ever seen your face, then?" Abia asks, making a gentle slope of her shins and letting a giggling Kuiil'ika tumble down it.

"This morning, for the first time," Din nods. "I hadn't formally adopted him yet. When I did, it seemed wrong to do it with the helmet on."

"And your—and Yala?" Tarc asked.

Din remembered that she'd had one on one time with all of the kids. He was suddenly curious if they'd talked about him.

"Her too."

"That wasn't… necessary," Tarc said hesitantly.

"Not for survival, no. But it felt wrong that they didn't know my face."

He lets them mull that over for a moment while he picks up the kid, who is beginning to get tired and cranky.

"I met a lone Mandalorian on some moon. Old man. He told me about growing up on Mandalore, about raising his family there. All Mandalorians stopped taking off their helmet in public after the Purge, but talking to him made me realise how… how unusual our interpretation of the creed is."

He can't tell how they're taking this, but he supposes they haven't called him dar'manda yet, so he'll keep going.

"If I can find him again I intend to ask if he wants to come here and be ba'buir to you all. So that there is somebody here to teach about Mandalore. About what the culture was like when we were not on the run."

They both sit up straighter, intrigued by that direct link to a planet they've only heard about, and a culture they must have known was very different.

"Do you guys think you can get the kids to where they'd welcome him, even if he takes off his helmet inside?" Gods, it's such a relief to not have to get all the way to that point on his own, today. These two can help. They spend more time with the kids, they can work on individual reservations.

Abia nods. "I'm assuming that will be at least a week away, so yeah, I think we can."

"Good. It's not… not _right_ that we give outsiders the power to take away our identity. We are more than our helmets.."

Din reaches out and squeezes each of their shoulders. He's not sure if he has a right to the pride of a buir, given that he's spent very little time with them. But he wants them to know how proud he is of what they're doing, what they have done.

"Now we just need to convince the kid with the headwound to let Yala look at it."

Tarc sighs.

"I'm guessing it's Moric. He's a Zabrac, his horns are still growing, and he doesn't have a special helmet yet, Alor didn't have time to make one. He knocked his head pretty hard last week"

"Any chance you can talk him into letting her treat it? Or you, with her instruction?"

"I'll talk to him."

Yala comes back to the mine by dusk, looking much calmer. She's twisted her hair into a whole bunch of little rope-like braids, and Din is a little sorry to have missed the process. He enjoys watching her do her hair , though usually they're much bigger, quicker braids done before bed. Listening to her hum while her hands do the well-practiced motions is one of those little intimacies of shipboard life that he can't imagine going without anymore.

She doesn't so much hug him as collide with his chest and wrap her arms around him as an afterthought. His arms come up to return the embrace without his conscious input.

"Did you get to speak to somebody?"

"My family's in the black, so I Most of the _Tranquility_ crew, yes. It was good to hear them. Thank you."

He fondly squeezes at the back of her neck. She melts against him, and Din forcibly reminds himself that this is not the moment to explore what it would feel like to be kissing her when he does that. Tonight, when they're alone in the Razor Crest. Not now.

"How are things here?"

"I talked to the kids. It's… it's a lot to throw on them all at once."

She hums in agreement.

"Tarc convinced the kid to let him treat the wound, consulting with you."

He's not sure how she'll react to that given her earlier frustration, but she shrugs.

"As long as it gets treated. How's Paz?"

"Still asleep, last I looked."

"Huh. Good going."

"Yeah, seems like he needed it." Din smiles, glad they'd been able to bring his brother some relief. "You seemed surprised, when you saw him this morning?"

"You mean out of the armour?" she narrows her eyes a little, like she thinks he's fishing for something.

"Yeah."

"With what I looked up on the holonet about your people, it seemed like you were mostly all pale blonde humans. I was surprised to find somebody with darker skin than mine under the armour."

"That would be because the articles were written by those who sided with Satine Kryize. She wanted to reform Mandalore completely and declared everybody who didn't fit her vision of perfect Mandalorians to be _dar'manda_. Kyr'tsad, the group that took me in, was in rebellion against that."

"Hmm. Time to submit some holonet articles of your own, perhaps?"

Paz, when he finally wakes up, is surly and snappish. Din is pretty sure he's embarrassed that he slept for nine hours. Yala informs him dryly that he did them all a favour by not wasting the bacta and letting it do its work, because the wound looks much better. It's still going to take time to heal, because there's no skin to pull together, but she sounds optimistic while she puts on a vacu-dressing, instructing Tarc as she does it.

When they finally return to the Razor Crest that night, Kuiil'ika long asleep in the bassinet, Din closes the ramp with something of relief.

Privacy.

He bends down to stroke a gentle thumb along the little guy's forehead, and closes the cover for the night.

Yala is talking about where they need to go to buy medical supplies, but she trails off when he backs her against the wall, staring at her in the low light.

"H-hi…" she whispers up at him.

"Been thinking about this all day."


	12. Chapter 12

Din presses his thigh between hers and uses his bulk to hold Yala in place. Then he reaches up to his helmet, unseals it, and—

Her eyes are huge as she looks up to him, as if she hadn't expected him to just… take his helmet off again. 

He feels a strange reluctance now it comes to it. Not for the helmet to be off, but to be seen taking it off. As if the transition from helmeted to bare-faced is more intimate than actually being without it.

Din covers her eyes with his hand for a moment, feeling her eyebrows shoot up, while he hooks his other hand under the rim of the helmet and pulls it off. He takes his hand from her face when he leans to the side to dump the helmet on some stacked cargo netting. 

Yala blinks at him, bemused. He presses his forehead to hers, breathing her air. 

"I'll explain later." Maybe once he's figured it out himself. She nods, accepting this with a little shrug. 

Din flexes his thigh, and she makes a breathy little noise. 

"I have been thinking about this _all day_ ," he says again, voice pitched low in the quiet of the parked ship. 

"Oh? Thinking about this…" she turns her head slightly from side to side, rubbing against his forehead, "or this?" she rolls her hips.

"Yes."

She chuckles. He's been fantasising about how much he wants to give her that look that he remembers, glassy-eyed and breathless. 

Yala is working from a different flight plan, because her hands come up and she encourages him closer so she can kiss him, her nails scratching lightly over his scalp. 

Din manages to stop an embarrassing noise from coming out, because that feels so _good_ he goes still for a long moment, lost in it.This is a lot for somebody whose head hasn't been touched by anybody but himself since he was 8 years old. 

"Oh wow, is that what—what your face does?" she says, delighted. "I wish I'd known that."

He takes her by the wrists and gently pushes them against the wall beside her shoulders. 

"But—"

"It's… a lot," he manages after a couple of deep breaths, trying to scrape together words for how overwhelming this is. "I'd like to—can you let me just—"

"You want me to keep my hands to myself?" she asks, smiling a little. She is squirming very slightly against his thigh. 

"Please."

"I'll be good," she promises playfully. "Just this once. You won't even need to cuff me."

Din's breath catches at that thought, because fuck, he _has_ fantasised about that, about using his heavy bounty cuffs, having her helpless and squirming on his bed. 

Her face does something he can't place, but her eyes gleam in the low light, and then she rises up onto tiptoes and whispers just over his ear.

"Now _there's_ a thought to keep in mind…"

Her whisper by his ear— He's never felt anything like that, the helmet filters sound and divorces everything from sensations. Even if the implication of her words didn't make his head spin, her warm breath brushes over his ear. The sensation and sound of it, her low, seductive tone—it lights a fire in his belly and FUCK—

He presses her into the wall a little harder.

"Slow. down." he orders, and she flutters her eyelashes at him. He tilts his forehead to rest against hers, trying to recover his self control. 

She slowly, deliberately moves her hands to wrap around the bar over her head, and it takes his breath, that she's giving this to him, that she's willing to let him experience this at his pace. 

"Fine. I will bravely suffer though being your experiment," she says with a wicked little grin up at him. 

Din huffs a laugh and bends down to brush his lips against hers, first on the corner of her mouth, then more fully, a few teasing touches until she tries to push toward him to make the contact more solid. Her lips are so soft, and just the thought of her tongue touching his has his blood running hot. He gently sucks on her full lower lip, and she makes a breathy little sound low in her throat, angling her head a little more so they fit together. Oh, yes, that's—yes, perfect. 

His whole body feels restless just from this, intensely aware of every part of him that's pressed up against her. He's holding her up onto her toes with the thigh he insinuated between hers, his erection pressing against her belly. His left hand is cupped around her jaw, his right hand on her flank, idly rubbing up and down over her shirt. 

"Take them off, please—the, the gloves," she whispers.

He makes a little space with his torso to bring his hands between their bodies and then takes his sweet time in taking off his gloves, pinching each leather fingertip to loosen his fingers, then drawing out his hand deliberately slow and tossing the glove down onto the deck. 

She looks completely hypnotised when he's finished, her lips parted a little bit, and after weeks of feeling like her words and mannerisms, her very _presence_ is enough to bring his body to attention while she is oblivious, this is the most gratifying feeling he could have imagined. 

He slides his hand up to her neck and tips up her chin, kissing her slow and thorough. Takes note of everything that makes her hum or squirm or make those tiny noises in her throat that she doesn't seem aware she's making. 

When their tongues finally touch she moans almost as loud as he does. 

His hands feel restless, the hand on her side having slipped under her shirt, now roaming across all the smooth skin he can reach, and she's squirming against him, in as much as she has space to move. 

She lightly sucks on his tongue, and there's a bolt of— _fuck_ , he could feel that through his entire body, and he breaks the kiss to catch his breath. 

At least she's panting too. 

"Really _suffering_ here," she smirks, and he dives back in to kiss that smug curl off her lips, presses forward with his tongue, invades her mouth. She yields to his advance and it is so, so sweet. The intensity of this, of just kissing, causes him to curl his fingers into the soft flesh of her hip. 

He tips her chin up and away, and moves his mouth to her neck, right over her pulse point.

Her breath stutters, and her pulse picks up, pounding against his lips. He opens his mouth for a lick and _groans_. Of all the aspects of finally getting his mouth on her he has neglected to think about what her sweat might taste and smell like. He's thought extensively about what she tastes like between her thighs—the memory of sucking clean his fingers is seared in his memory. But just this? Just here, on the warm, soft skin of her throat? 

She trembles when he scrapes his teeth a little, lets his mouth wander to the side of her neck.

"Want to bite you," he whispers against her skin. There isn't much room between her neck and upraised arm, so he slides his hand up that arm and moves her hand out to the side, keeps it pressed there against the wall. 

She tilts her head further in invitation. "I d-did suggest it to-to you," she murmurs. "A long t-time agooOO—"

Her words rise into a squeak when he sinks his teeth into the muscle between her neck and shoulder, steadily increasing pressure until she begins to shake, then easing off a little. He swirls his tongue against the teeth marks and sucks heat to the surface while she makes beautiful, shocked little noises. 

Fuck, he wants to spend a lot more time on that. Wants to pin her to his bed and find all the places that make her offer her body to his teeth for more, _harder_. Not now though, right now there are too many options and he can't settle on any. Lets his hands roam her torso, down to her ass for a firm squeeze that makes her head drop back against the wall. 

He noses aside the collar of her shirt and breathes her in deeply. Fuck, she smells good. His enjoyment rumbles low in his chest. Yala shivers.

He lets his hands slide up her shirt, lifting it along with him. She ducks her head through the neck opening and stands before him in a tight stretchy top he isn't quite sure how to remove. Just over her head? He begins to slip his fingers under the bottom edge. 

"It's—got a closing. In the back," she says, tight and breathless. 

Din doesn't feel like blind guesswork, so he steps back a little, withdrawing his thigh from between hers, and then takes hold of her shoulders to turn her to face the wall. Her hands come down to press against the cold metal by her shoulders. The top comes off easily, and he plasters himself against her back, cupping her breasts. 

"Be nice to those?" she whispers. "No pinching."

Or biting, presumably. 

"I can be nice," he replies over her ear, kneading her breasts gently. "You'll tell me? If you need that?"

She hums affirmatively, rocking her hips back against him. He becomes more and more aware of still wearing the armour, of the hard plates stopping him from feeling her. He puts his hands over hers for a moment, pressing them into the wall. 

"Stay put."

He looks at her back while he takes off the armour, leaving his base layers. He kind of wants to take off his shirt, feel her against his bare torso, but he doesn't want to get distracted by what that feels like. Din has a goal for the evening and he wants to avoid getting sidetracked. 

"Are you listening to me undressing?" he asks with amusement.

"Mmm-hmm."

He hadn't said she couldn't look over her shoulder, but he likes that she interpreted his order to include that. When he's done, he steps up behind her, putting her within easy reach but not touching her. 

He waits, quietly. Lets the tension draw out. 

He can see her whole body fight against the instinct to look around. It's intoxicating, getting so much reaction out of something so simple. After another minute Din leans close enough that she can feel his breath on her neck, and she jolts.

"Please," she breathes.

"Please what?" he pitches his voice low.

She can't seem to find words, or can't bear to say them out loud, because there's just a delicious, squirmy little noise of desperation. 

When she takes a shivery breath and lets her forehead drop against the wall, her whole body shaking with tension, he reaches out and puts a single fingertip at the nape of her neck. She nearly jumps out of her skin, and he can't help but chuckle. Din lets his touch drift down along her spine, all the way to where the waistband of her trousers halts him. 

"Do you want to take these off for me?" 

In answer she wordlessly undoes the drawstring and he pulls down her leggings and underwear, leaving it around her calves. Din's breath catches at the sight of her ass, lush and even better than in his most heated memories. He's reached the limits of his restraint here, and crowds up behind her, both hands sliding down her back to cup those perfect soft curves.

"Fuck," he sighs, "I tried not to miss you, but you have _no_ idea how much I thought about doing this…"

"Are you saying you tried not to think of me but you did think of my ass a lot?" she says with amusement. 

"Mm. Thought about doing this…" he smoothly sinks to his knees and stares his fill for a moment, selecting the perfect place. It's the lower curve of her asscheek, just there where it dips in toward her thigh. 

She yelps when she feels his teeth, and he grins against her warm brown skin. 

"You spent that long thinking about _that_?" she laughs breathlessly. 

He firmly takes her by the hips and turns her around, until the soft brush of her hair is right by his face and the sweet, musky scent of her fills his nose. It makes his mouth water. 

"Not just about that," he says, eyes fixed on the slight sheen he can see on the seam of her lips. He's read about this and it's probably fascinated him from the moment he realised people did that. Used their mouths. That sex could be _that_ intimate, for people who did not wear helmets all the time. He has no illusion that he'll be perfect at it first time, but she's—Yala has always felt like a safe person to be imperfect with. He presses an open mouthed kiss to the crease of her thigh. 

"Hell of a learning curve," she says on a shivery exhale, "From kissing to t-thisss…"

He hums in amusement, nudging her legs to open a little wider. 

"Can we—before you—Din?"

He looks up, deeply gratified by how flushed she looks. 

"Hmm?"

"Can we d-do this on a bed? It'll be—better."

Din idly wonders if she doesn't like seeing him on his knees or if it's something else. The bed sounds like a good idea anyway; he plans to be at this a while, no reason not to get comfortable. 

He rises to his feet and guides her backward by the hips, keeping her upright when the leggings still around her calves hinder her steps. He steers her through the entrance to the cargo bay and toward her bunk. Then without missing a beat he picks her up and sets her with her back against the side wall, pulling her hips forward to the edge. She kicks off her shoes and he yanks her leggings off her legs.

Yala stuffs pillows and blankets behind her back while he reaches for a small crate to sit on, putting his face at the perfect height. When he focuses back on Yala she's closed her legs, not unwilling, he thinks, but suddenly selfconscious. 

He captures her gaze as he stands up and leans over, hands planted on the mattress on either side of her, caging her in while he leans close enough to kiss her. She sighs against his lips, whole body relaxing. 

"I love it when you melt for me like this," he murmurs against her jaw, when she's out of breath, " _Fuck_ , that is hot."

He wants to guide her hand to where she can feel exactly how exciting it is for him, but that will lead to getting distracted, so he focuses on her. Puts a hand on her thigh. 

"I want to taste you," he whispers over her ear. She shivers, and her legs relax enough that he can slip his hand to cup her mound. He traces a featherlight finger over the seam of her lips until she hums and her thighs fall open. He rewards her with another kiss and shifts down, kissing along her neck, pausing at her nipples. Yala makes approving little sounds when he sucks a hard nipple into his mouth and lavishes attention on it, flicking it with his tongue and giving gentle, pulsing sucks. 

She rocks her hips forward, seeking pressure from the finger that has been stroking between her legs, and the both of them groan when it slips into her. It makes a soft, slick sound that his helmet sound filter has never picked up. He pumps his finger in and out, lifting his head to hear it better. 

"Hmm?"

"Fuck, that's a hot sound."

She starts to say something, but he slips in a second finger, easy in the abundant wetness of her arousal, and her words are lost in a moan.

He moves back until he is sitting on the crate between her knees, one hand on her thigh to keep open her legs. The muscles are flexing as if she wants to close them again, and he glances up. 

"It's okay," she says with a hint of wry amusement at herself. "I'm just not used to a study being made of me."

"Close your eyes," Din orders. "Hands on your knees."

She obeys without question, and that gives him such a headrush he has to make an effort to keep his breathing steady. He puts a hand on her breastbone to firmly push her back against the pillows. Then he arranges her legs to his liking, wide enough to grant him space for his shoulders. He looks his fill, gently tracing her folds with a fingertip. 

"Yala. You don't have to do anything but feel and let me hear how it feels. Can you do that?"

"Yes," she whispers, body relaxing. 

She jolts up a second later when he closes his lips over the tiny flower of folds that hides her clit. He explores her gently with his tongue, trying to note what she responds to. He pushes his two slick fingers back into her, and her hips strain toward him a little, and fuck, _fuck_ that's—Din hums against her, mind spinning out gently at how overwhelming this is, how much he likes the pressure of her thighs, how _good_ she tastes. There is so much to feel and taste and hear. He is hard as beskar in his trousers. 

His lips go back to her little clit, and he sucks gently. Yala hisses and grabs for his free hand. 

"You'll kinda need to build up to that," she says, voice tight.

"Mmhmm," he breaks away, stroking her hand comfortingly with his thumb. Goes back to tracing her folds with his tongue, a little less direct, until she is letting loose a stream of sighs and moans and encouragement that has him sweating. 

He finds the things that reduce her words to incoherent stutter and then, when her toes are curling and her breath heaving, keeps doing those things with patient focus. It's tempting to draw it out, to hit all those other notes he's been fantasising about, to back off and make her beg. 

One day, when they have all the time in the world, he would like to tease her into a sobbing, begging mess and then finally fuck her until she is limp with pleasure. He wants to see her on her knees looking up at him with those sweet brown eyes, wants to caress her face as she opens those lush lips for him. Wants to order her to sit on his lap in the pilot seat, his cock buried deep inside of her, and just hold her like that while he flies the ship. Wants to see her bent over his lap with her luscious ass flushed dark from his hand. He wants to make her come in every position and on every surface of his ship.

 _Fuck_ he's hard, throbbing in his trousers, leaking precum into his underwear. He shifts his legs a little, trying to find a more comfortable position. Yala's legs are shaking, and he remembers how hard she clamped her thighs in reflex, back then. He's got one shoulder between them and he figures it's too late to change when she's this close. But he wonders what it would be like to just have his head here, right with his tongue on her clit and his fingers in her cunt, and feel those soft thighs close around him, clamping around his ears and keeping his head in place. He intends to find out sometime. 

Her hips jerk involuntarily, and he groans against her clit. It's so fucking hot when her body takes over to seek what it needs. Din curls his fingers upward hard, no longer just stroking the ridges of her walls but rubbing more firmly. Apparently _that_ is what she needed. Her legs clench around him, her hips lifting. She buries her face into her free hand and lets out a high pitched moan. Her whole body shakes. It's _incredible_. No wonder she didn't want to do this standing, she would have fallen. Din almost chokes on his own saliva at the feeling of new wetness coating his fingers. 

As soon as the aftershocks start to fade away and her thighs have relaxed, Din stands up and pulls his fingers out of her. He scrabbles at his own trousers, desperate to free his erection. Her body, pliant with afterhaze, her thighs fallen open and her entrance fluttering, seems to beg for his cock, Even if he hadn't firmly resolved to take his time with each stage of discovering each other, not skip straight ahead to fucking her, he's literally ready to go off—he doubts he'd even make it all the way inside of her. 

When he's finally, _finally_ got himself in hand he gives his cock a single light stroke, coating himself in her juices. Then he guides her lax hand down to wrap around his length. It takes her a moment to pull herself out of her haze, and she can't do more than squeeze at this angle, but it doesn't even matter. Din folds his hand over hers and begins to pump through their combined grip.

Yala watches him through half-lidded eyes, looking debauched with her knees fallen wide open, her hips still on the edge of the bed, sweet little cunt ready for him to shove his cock right home—

"The things I want to _do_ to you," he groans softly. 

Her eyes are fixed on their hands and the way the flushed head of his cock pushes wetly through their fingers.

"Oh _fuck_ that is a-a gorgeous cock," she breathes. "I'm g-gonna want, want that in my mouth, ohh, in my—oh _fuck_ I'm gonna want you to st-stick that cock _every_ where—" 

Din started coming right about when she started talking in that languid, lust-hazed voice. He brings their hands up a little, aiming the streaks of his cum to land on her stomach. The choked out implication of the places she'll want him to put his cock makes his hips jerk, a hard jolt that wrings a noise from him and makes a streak of his seed land on her breast. His hips rock forward a few more times with the aftershocks, cock slicking through their loosened grip. Din feels light in the head. 

He lets their hands slide off his cock. His knees are wobbly, and he sits down hard on the crate. Letting his head tip forward, he presses his face against the soft inside of her thigh. Her hand comes up to pet his hair, and he feels like he's floating. 

"Come on the bed," she urges, gently tugging at his hair. "Come on, I need cuddles."

Getting back to his feet costs an unreasonable amount of effort. Din looks her over, naked and glowing in front of him, and vaguely wishes for a washcloth to clean her up with. He doesn't want to walk away from her right now. Instead he pulls off his undershirt in one easy motion and uses it to wipe his seed off her skin. She moves the pillows and shifts to lie lengthwise while he kicks off his boots and trousers, and he climbs up too. 

She's on her back and guides him to stretch out half on top of her, his thigh between hers, spent cock against her hip, arm across her chest. She's so warm and soft, it's almost too much. Din buries his nose against her hair and can't hold back a bone-deep sigh of comfort. 

"Good?" Yala whispers. He can hear her smile. 

"You have..." he sighs, " _no_ idea."

He doesn't know how to explain to her—

Din hasn't had a lot of sex in his life. Attraction, occasion and sufficient safety rarely coincided. Most times it did happen it was a quick blowing off of steam, physically satisfying and that was enough. The only times in his life where the moments immediately after sex weren't a matter of tucking himself back into his trousers and a parting of ways were the few encounters he had with her on his ship six years ago, when she had stayed in his lap to cuddle. The last time then has also been the first, and until now only, time he'd taken off his armour. 

He's always been aware that people did this, curled up together naked after sex. He'd just… thought it was because it was rude to walk away immediately if you were with a regular partner. He'd thought it wasn't something he cared for. 

He had been _extremely_ wrong. 

Just the feeling of her so close, the both of them relaxed with the lassitude after an orgasm—so much of his skin touching hers— _fuck_. Her hand is slowly drifting up his arm, his shoulder, down his back in idle circles, and the whole world narrows down to just here, just this. Just her breathing, her amazing scent, her touch just short of firm. Perfect. 

"So do I also…" she whispers after a while. 

"Hmm?" he doesn't want to move. Possibly ever. 

"Do I also get a session where I get to touch and you keep your hands to yourself?" she asks with a teasing little grin in her voice. 

Din hesitates, because he supposes he owes her that, but giving up control does not come as easily to him as it seems to come to her. On the other hand, he kind of feels like he can't ask her for some of the things he'd like to do if he can't give her this. 

"This is the first time I've seen you naked," she smiles. "I would like to get to touch you, too."

"No restraints," he murmurs. Anything else he can probably handle. 

"Oh, no. I know you like to be in control. And I like you in control, too," she agrees. There's something of a shy little curl in that last admission. "But I'd like to give you a massage and just focus on that."

Her hand stroking his shoulder already feels so nice, Din has to admit that doesn't sound so bad even though it's probably going to be an effort not to take over.

"We can do that," he agrees. 

She tilts her head to press a pleased kiss to his cheek. 

"Mm. Will you tell me about those things you want to do to me, sometime?" she murmurs, a little drowsy. 

Din pushes to a sit for a moment to grab the blankets and spread them out over the both of them. Then they resettle with him on his back, Yala nestled in the crook of his arm with her leg slung over his. Din doesn't know if he can sleep like this, so close to another person, but it's entirely possible he'd happily stay awake all night just to not let this moment end. 

"I will tell you, when we're both awake," he promises softly. "And I'll want to hear more detail of your… suggestions… too."

She hides her face in her hand and to his amazement he can actually feel her cheek grow hot against his chest and fuck, that is the best thing _ever_. He knows that every time she runs a clinic she talks to people about contraceptive options. She's a fairly forthright person, she doesn't seem to have trouble telling him how she likes to be touched. 

Apparently though… apparently there is a whole other layer of desires where just the idea of voicing them out loud makes her squirm. Din's spent cock twitches weakly with the thought that he could tease her until she's desperate enough to tell him, that he could encourage her to vocalise every filthy thought in her head. And then, obviously, make them happen as a reward. 

Fuck, that's a hell of a thought. 

"Don't worry, I'll get it out of you," he says, feigning a comforting tone. Yala squeaks and hides her face against his shoulder. Din chuckles softly and pulls her closer, not sure what to do with this dizzying swell of affection. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're 18+ and would like to talk about Mandos and reading and writing about Mandos doing sexy things.. drop by this [Discord server](https://discord.gg/q8uHMbH). We could use some new blood :-)


	13. Chapter 13

Regrettably there isn't much time to get into those plans—or even to have those conversations. The next evening Paz, Abia, Tarc, Yala and Din talk until late in the night to set a course for the tribe, something that will get them into a sustainable existence rather than a refuge.

It's decided between them that they'll go the next morning to Nevarro for information about where Alor is, then to find Drijak and to restock medical supplies. Yala suggests that Tarc comes along with them; both a supply run and the opportunity to run clinic a couple of times is invaluable experience for him.

Din doesn't relish the thought of giving up privacy just when he most wants a week of uninterrupted time to explore Yala's every nerve ending, every sound he can draw out of her, every shade of blush he can bring to her skin.

But he can't deny that the two teens desperately need training and experience out in the world, and it's a simple thing to contribute to the tribe, so he agrees to it.

He's nervous enough about taking Kuiil'ika to Nevarro that the idea of an extra pair of weapons trained hands seems like a good idea, anyway.

Paz half offered to look after the baby here while Din and Yala were away, but it's… no matter how it worries him to bring his son to Nevarro, the idea of leaving him behind is far worse. He'd promised to never leave him behind again, he'd done far too much of it in those desperate weeks on the run when he'd first had the boy. No, Kuiil'ika is coming with them. Din will simply have to be very, very vigilant.

And perhaps Cara will be willing to help make sure there are always enough eyes on the boy to keep him safe.

Yala is half asleep when Din guides her back to the Razor Crest that night, the baby already asleep in his bassinet. Kuiil'ika had gone around the circle, soliciting attention from everybody in turn before demanding to be handed over to the next person, until he'd finally curled up contentedly in the crook of Din's arm.

Din curls his hand warmly over Yala's far hip, and she occasionally stumbles against him a little.

"So, bringing Tarc, huh?" he says. "I guess he can sleep in Varik's place."

She hums in agreement, and it occurs to him belatedly that he, so often on his own on his ship, is far more used to privacy than she is. The thought of being overheard makes him twitch.

"Guess our _plans_ will have to wait," he says with a squeeze of her hip.

"Mm, I can recall doing some fun stuff with our clothes on."

"Yeah?" he chuckles, low. "I don't remember you wearing much of anything."

She swats at his arm.

"And you were _definitely_ not quiet enough," he adds.

"The cockpit door locks, doesn't it? Not good enough?"

He shakes his head. Just the idea of Tarc being on the ship while they—

"Are Mandos expected to wait until marriage?"

He wags his hand.

"Sort of. But there's no public ceremony, and nobody cares that much."

"So Tarc is likely to assume we already are doing it."

Din falters a step, because he hadn't thought of that, and he doesn't like it at _all_.

"Perhaps," he says reluctantly.

"It just bothers you that he'd be aware that we were together," she yawns, "even if he couldn't hear or see us?"

"It doesn't bother you?"

She sways into his side while he keys open the ramp.

"Not really, no. You just kinda… you do your best to be discreet and quiet, and other people politely pretend they didn't notice."

Din shudders a little and leads her inside.

"That's a pass from me." He feels awkward just thinking about it.

"Okay. Handholding only until we get back," she yawns. "Keep the gloves on, or it'll be too raunchy. Get me all worked up."

He knows she's teasing him, but that just makes him wonder if he _could_ get her worked up just with that.

"Want to come up—" he gestures to the cockpit, "hammock?"

"Yes. We should make out while we can," she says gravely.

She snuggles into him in the hammock, and it feels so natural that Din is amazed they only did this for the first time just two nights ago. They kiss a little, but they're both so tired, it fades into the warm affection of holding each other.

"It doesn't bother you that my people assume that we're already—well, pair bonded?" he asks her when her head is nestled under his chin.

"Depends on if they have any expectations that come with that," she murmurs.

That's a fair point. Mandalorians would expect her to adhere to the Resol'nare. Perhaps not all at once, especially with the current lack of access to a forge to make her armour, but—He needs to think about that.

Specifically, he needs to think about if it is important to him that she adheres to the Resol'nare and becomes a Mandalorian. Or if he'd be willing to be married to somebody who didn't.

He doesn't need to be thinking about what kind of armour he'd design for her, and how good she'd look in it.

"What does it involve for your people?" he asks, saving the 'Would you consider wearing armour' question for later.

"Marriage? By definition of my people, we made it official when you asked me to join the Clan of the Mudhorn."

Din jolts.

"Though we're not usually monogamous, so there's that to talk about…"

Oh.

What?

He wants to ask her more, but she's nodding off in his arms.

"We should go to bed."

"Mm," she agrees.

"Want to join me?"

"Mmfh. Will you.. actually sleep.. With me so close…?"

He has to admit that so far it doesn't seem likely. He'd been awake the previous night until he finally gave up and slipped out of her bed to go sleep in his own.

She sighs against the skin of his throat, and Din shivers.

"Join me in my bed. Y'can sneak out later…"

That might work better. She's a much more solid sleeper than he is.

He's well aware of how… indulgent this is. Indulgent and inefficient, to crawl into bed with her when he's going to move later. They both should be sleeping in their own beds. But he can't get enough of the opportunity to just.. Touch her, feel her body against him, so he does it anyway. Especially because come tomorrow morning, they'll have Tarc aboard (and then, hopefully, Drijak too) and there can't be more than a fleeting touch.

He curls up against Yala's back, nose tucked against the silky cap she wears over her hair at night, and somehow falls asleep after all.

Din wakes up very early in the morning, Yala still in his arms. Not that there's much chance for her not to be, as narrow as the bunk is. She's turned toward him, head on his shoulder, her leg drawn up over his thighs.

He might have felt restless, perhaps even a little trapped, if he didn't get distracted by how good she smells, by the warm weight of her, by the smoothness of the bare leg thrown over him. By how close her thigh is to his morning erection, and how tempting it is to run his fingers along the soft skin of that thigh.

His hand was already on the curve of her hip when he woke, and he slowly lets it drift down over her behind. He feels slow and dumb with sleep, not exactly trying to wake her, but if she just happened to wake right now and notice that he—

Yala makes a disgruntled little noise.

"Lea'me alone…" she mumbles into his shoulder.

Din makes an apologetic noise, moving his hand up to her shoulder where he can't be tempted to keep touching her.

She dozes on while he tries to think about the day ahead, the things that need doing. It doesn't work, he keeps returning to how soft her skin is under his fingertips, and how little time and privacy they'll have for the next week or two.

Yala sighs a while later and rubs her cheek against his shoulder. She shifts, sleepily pressing closer into him. Her thigh slides up over her body, and he jolts a little as it presses against him intimately. Her hand is tracing over his stomach.

"On second thought… _don't_ leave me alone…" she murmurs.

"Changed your mind?" he chuckles, letting his hand slide down along her side. She makes a pleased sound and undulates against him.

"Takes a bit for my brain to get on board…" she smiles against his skin.

The touching is just getting interesting when he hears the sound that heralds the start of the day; a plaintive cry from the closed bassinet they left by the bed.

Din gives a rueful chuckle and takes a second to kiss Yala, then reaches out to open the bassinet and pick up his son. The kid is bright awake, babbling animatedly as he pats Din's face.

Yala very slowly drags the blanket up over her head at this show of energy, but it doesn't spare her. The kid squeals and launches herself toward her, nearly toppling out of Din's grip. Din puts him down lightly and watches with amusement as his son prods the blanket and Yala makes different pitched "Noooo" noises as if she's an instrument.

"Are you poking your—" Din catches himself just before he says it, before he thoughtlessly mirrors Yala's 'Your dad' when she refers to him to Kuiil'ika. "Are you poking Yala?"

He gets what he thinks of as the big round eyes of innocence, and a little giggle, and then the kid continues poking at Yala's folded arms under the blanket. Din absently reaches out and lightly prods her where he knows her side is, and she gives a real yelp and a mock-indignant "be _trayal!_ "

"Did you hear something?" Din asks his son, who squeals. "No, I didn't either. Come on, let's go have breakfast."

He hesitates before strapping on the armour. Just looks at it for a moment. Paz has been pushing him to paint it, but there hasn't really been time.

("You're saying that the Imps are searching half the galaxy for a small green creature in the care of a Mando in full unpainted beskar'gam. And you don't think that drawing less attention to yourself will help?")

Din doesn't much like the thought—he likes the look of his armour, isn't immune to the impressed looks it gets him. The status it indicated served him well for bounty hunting jobs. But his brother is right that now it stands out far too much. He's better off drawing less attention to himself. And they do have paint in the mine.

There's an ancient tin of teal that makes him think… it's the way Mandalorian armour looks in his earliest memories, it's always going to represent rescue and safety to him. Unfortunately that's not how the outside world will see it. Wearing Death Watch colours will get him as much, if not more, attention as leaving it unpainted.

Maybe just.. Grey.

It would normally be about half a standard cycle to Nevarro, but Din is guiding Tarc through how to calculate hyperspace jumps, so it'll take longer. They're not on any particulate schedule. It doesn't really matter.

During the trip, Yala takes on the task of painting his armour. She mixes a grey with teal and the result is.. Fairly nondescript, but he appreciates the symbolism. Din tries not to resent the new look—it's _meant_ to be nondescript. It's going to make them all safer.

Just the thought of Nevarro makes him feel stressed. He'll have to come back there _some_ time, and they need the market and to find out what happened to Alor so it might as well be now. But Din can already feel his neck muscles draw tight at the thought of being back there.

He comms Cara before they arrive, and they agree to meet for a drink in an upscale place—as upscale as things get there—on the outskirts of town. It's close to where he can land the ship and not frequented by bounty hunters, which is currently the main draw.

Tarc offers to stay in the ship and watch over the baby. It'll be evening time when they get there, their own day cycle coinciding with the planet's cycle, and Din figures he can take the younger man to accompany him on business in the morning.

He'd be glad not to have any distractions when Cara meets Yala. He has absolutely no idea what to expect from that.


	14. Chapter 14

"Mando!" Cara says, dropping down in the booth. Din smiles at seeing her, always somehow larger than life. She looks good, well rested. Her hair has grown out a bit and he can see an intricate braiding pattern on one side. 

"Cara," he says warmly. 

"You look… freshly painted," she says with humour. "Time for a less shiny look, huh?"

"Seemed prudent," he nods. "Cara, this is Yala, my—partner. She's the third member of my clan. Yala, this is Carasynthia." Oh, he will pay for that full name. But it's still worth it. 

He spent more time than was reasonable thinking about how to introduce Yala, what would be understating, what might be overstepping. 

"Hi," Yala smiles. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah, hi," Cara says distractedly. "Where's the kid? He okay?"

"He's fine, we brought a babysitter," Din assures her. It makes him smile how much Carasynthia 'I don't do the baby thing' Dune has clearly gotten to care for his son. 

"Oh, right. Good."

Cara sits back and seems to focus on Yala properly for the first time.

"Third member of his clan, huh? How's that going for you?"

Yala shrugs. 

"Pretty good so far, I think."

Din just observes for a bit. He can tell Cara is taking Yala's measure, trying to figure out what kind of person she is. 

"How did you two meet?"

"He kind of kidnapped me from the planet where I was a prisoner."

Cara's eyebrows rise.

"More like a rescue," Din speaks up. 

Yala waggles her hand. 

"Is it _really_ a rescue if it's accidental?" she drags out the 'really' doubtfully, her eyes dancing with amusement. 

"You've been rescuing people?" Cara says, and Din makes a triumphant 'See?' gesture, because clearly Cara agrees it had been a rescue. Yala huffs. "When did this happen?" 

"Six, seven years ago?" Yala glances at him for confirmation. 

"Oh, damn, you've known each other this whole time?" Cara grins. "No wonder I couldn't get you hitched on Sorgan."

Thankfully Yala doesn't rise to that bait. 

"Oh, we weren't in contact again until recently. I've been working as a medic on freighters around the Quence sector."

Din's attention is drawn to the entrance, where Greef Karga is just coming in. Cara must have instructed him, because unlike his usual manner he barely draws any attention to their company, and Din gradually relaxes. 

Greef joins them, and introductions are followed by drinks and catching up.

"So, how did this happen?" Greef gestures between Din and Yala.

"Well, you know," Yala says before Din can figure out how to answer that, "I mentioned that I was carrying a can opener just in case he felt like getting naked in a hurry, and we've been together ever since." She says it very matter of fact, and Cara cracks up. 

Din shakes his head in fond exasperation, because she must have had that one ready in case it was asked. It's both in no way true and a much better way to defuse the question than whatever awkward stumble Din would have come up with. 

Greef laughs too, accepting that's the best answer he'll get, and he and Din get talking about bounties and if he has anything suitable to do with Tarc. 

"Come hang with me for a bit," Cara says, standing up and gesturing for Yala to join her. 

"Can't tell if you're flirting with me or if you want to show me a rash," Yala says with amusement. 

"Wait, people do that?"

"Yes. Both of those things. Sometimes at the same time."

Din chokes on his drink at the expression Cara makes, and she gives him a helpful whack on the back before leading Yala to a corner booth. 

Din can't help paying attention to their conversation there, too low to overhear. Their body language is serious, intent. 

"You think they're talking about you?" Says Greef.

Din gives him a Look. Of course he thinks they're talking about him. Cara has that casually intimidating posture that he remembers from the first time he met her. 

Then suddenly Yala leans forward, elbow on the table, and feels Cara's arm. It's not a casual touch, Cara is offering her arm and Yala's gentle, dexterous fingers are gliding all along her bicep. He feels an entirely inappropriate spark of jealousy. It will be some time before they have the privacy and time for her to touch his bare skin.

The bar gradually fills up, and at some point the ladies rejoin Greef and Din, apparently in the middle of a conversation about relationships. 

"Wait, so your people don't do pair bonds at all?"

Din tries not to pay attention too obviously. This is a conversation he's been meaning to have, but every time so far they've had a minute of privacy in the cockpit, things rapidly devolve into furious kissing. 

"Not in the way most people think of them, no," Yala says, settling in next to Din, arm brushing against his. "Two people's not enough to fly a ship, see. You gotta have all the skills covered."

"So it's more like a… group marriage?" Cara asked, glancing at Din. 

"I explained it to somebody at _Stellar_ once and she called it a poly heist crew."

Cara guffaws. 

"OK, so a Dalu marriage often does start with two people who are bonded. If they have a ship to fly, they usually actively seek out people they would like to add who have the skills they want for their crew."

"Right, a poly heist crew," Cara nods with a grin. 

"Yeah. When it's not with the purpose of filling roles it's usually a more gradual thing where they might run into somebody they would like to add."

"So, what, everybody sleeps with everybody?" Cara raises her eyebrows. 

"It's...." Yala puts down her drink and makes some vague double-handed gestures that crack Din up. "...fluid, I guess." 

Din tries not to think about this concept in any kind of detail, or the mental images will get distracting. He turns to Greef to continue their conversation about the aftermath of Grand Moff Gideon's attack. 

The evening runs late, and the drinks flow. Din mostly sits back and drinks cold tea, enjoying the conversation around him and the way nobody expects him to speak much. They are content to let him hang back and occasionally comment. Every once in a while it hits him that they _know_ him, these people. 

He's known Greef for a long time, of course, and while they're not close, he's one of the people that have always signalled _home_ to Din. 

Cara is his friend forged in the fires on Sorgan, a bond only made stronger by what they went through together later. They've seen parts of each other he hopes never to have reason to have to show again. He knows what it cost her to leave him behind, to take Kuiil'ika and run. Especially after all the comrades and fellow troops she must have had to leave behind on the battlefield in the past. 

Perhaps it's the relaxed nature of the evening, or the way it's become easier to let himself feel things lately. He's missed her, he realised. Hopes it will be possible to seek her out regularly. 

Then there's Yala, bright eyed and animated. Her voice has taken on that sing-songy cadence that he hears every time she has a few drinks. The way her own people speak, he suspects. He is always so charmed by it. 

Whenever she isn't talking—which she needs her hands for—Yala slips her hand under the table and twines her fingers with his. Din feels his heart kick up with affection every time. It's such a simple thing, that closeness, her fingers slipping between his gloved ones. 

As she drinks more the touch goes from holding hands to putting her hand on his thigh, especially when he casually drapes his arm along the back of the booth, behind her head. When that hand starts to creep upward…

He pulls her close by the back of her neck and murmurs in a low tone,

"Keep doing that, see where it gets you."

Her breath catches, and for a moment she looks intrigued. 

"I'm wearing a helmet," he points out under his breath. "You… are not."

And if the game is 'try to fluster the other' then she is not going to come out of this with her dignity intact. 

Tarc is on the ship looking after Kuiil'ika; there is no privacy to be had when they get back, and they plan to fly onward to pick of Drijak tomorrow, so it's only going to get more cramped aboard. 

It's almost enough to make him consider renting a room for the night, but he really can't justify the expense. Any of the other options he can think of would make it feel hurried and sordid, which is the opposite of what he wants. 

He wants her spread out underneath him on a bed, with all the time and privacy in the galaxy. They just need to get through this mission first. 

Greef agrees to check around for any signs of what happened to the Armourer, and to meet Din and Tarc the next morning for a bounty for the younger Mando. Cara agrees to spend the morning with Yala and 'the kid' — Din told her his name, but Cara doesn't quite seem ready to say Kuiil'ika yet. 

"Oh! If you come to the ship," Yala says as they get up, "I can scan your arm to see if we can find that implant!" 

Din reaches a hand to her side to steady her as she overbalances. 

"Sure," Cara says, enunciating carefully, "'n you can tell me more about that heist-crew-Dalu-marriage thing."

"Why," Yala's voice drops into a playfully flirty tone Din recognises all too well. "Are you thinkin' about applying?"

He is glad of the helmet, so Cara can't see his face, because he almost laughs at the flicker of surprise in her expression. But Cara wouldn't be Cara if she didn't barge straight at a challenge.

"Honey, you figure it out with your.. intended," she nods at Din, "and then if you want a spotchka aunt for the kid and a fighter for your heist crew, I look forward to your marriage proposal."

When Cara comes over the next morning, she and Yala exchange a slightly bleary hello, and Din makes no effort to hide his amusement at their hangovers. Kuiil'ika makes eager noises and leans over precariously from Yala's arms, so she hands him over to Cara. 

"He remembers me," Cara says with more surprised delight than Din thinks she intended to let show. 

"Of course he remembers you," he says with a smile. 

Cara brought fresh bread, and they eat with the five of them crammed around the little foldout table, Kuiil'ika cooing delightedly at having so many people he knows all together. He toddles across the table from one to the other, and they keep having to rescue their cups.

The plan is for Cara to keep Yala and the kid company while Din gives Tarc some lessons in how to choose bounties and other paid work. They'll pick up Yala and Kuiil'ika in the afternoon to go to the market, while Cara goes to the little settlement an hour's travel away to check out rumours about Alor. 

It's a weird feeling, looking back as Yala and Cara stand on the ramp with his son, waving goodbye. He tucks that away for later analysation. 

" _Don't_ let them get you in trouble" Din says sternly, deliberately unclear about which of the three he is addressing. Cara scoffs. Yala makes the big brown eyes of injured innocence. Kuiil'ika chortles and shakes his toy frog. 

Dins sighs. 

Yala and Cara look at each other. 

"He can't possibly mean me, he's clearly talking about you," Yala says, as if she isn't personally responsible for over half of his heart attacks. 

"What? Me getting somebody in trouble? _Never_ ," Cara says with a shit-eating grin. 

It's a productive morning; Din takes Tarc to see Greef, and they talk through the pucks Greef has in hand right now, discussing the ins and outs of every bounty, their connections and skills, what the likely risks of bringing them in will be. 

Tarc is a keen student, and even though he would clearly prefer to learn more medical skills, shows good judgement in picking the small bounty he settles on. Somebody low risk that's likely to be on the planet where Din has arranged to meet Drijak. 

His heart aches a little at how young Tarc is, how little he's seen of the world. and Din balks at the thought of letting him go after even this low risk quarry on his own. 

Din had barely been older than Tarc is now when he became the tribe's _beroya_. There hadn't been anybody to learn from, and he sure as hells hadn't picked low risk targets to learn on; the tribe had needed the money too much for the luxury of learning gradually. 

He's glad he can at least give the lad this experience. 

They make it back to the Razor Crest sometime after lunch, and to Din's pleasant surprise it doesn't appear that anything has happened… or they've already cleaned it up. Cara has a bandage on her bicep, but from a comment she makes, Din suspects it's to do with a birth control implant—perhaps that's what that odd moment the night before was about. 

He notices a couple of new toys Cara resolutely refuses to acknowledge. Apparently Yala and Cara took the kid to explore the markets and Yala made notes of where she wanted to come back to, to see if end of day prices would be more negotiable. 

The women say fond goodbyes, and Din has a jarring moment of realisation of how domestic this all is. It's normal not for Mandalorians, because life with the tribe has never once been like this. But normal in a way that speaks to something older, earlier in Din. A normal that came before war and rescue and the Way. A time when his mother would have friends over during the day when his father was out for work. In his memory, hazy and fond, there were always indulgent aunts about the house, with clever hands to help his mother with her fiberwork, and easy laughter ringing through the garden. 

Cara gives Kuiil'ika a kiss on the forehead before she heads out, and it feels like family. 


	15. Chapter 15

That afternoon Yala and Kuiil'ika accompany Din and Tarc to the market, the kid well-hidden in a sling against Yala's chest. Their provisioning run is pleasantly efficient, and soon Din and Tarc are both carrying heavy packs full of food, engine parts and other supplies.

Din is explaining something about how to spot potential clients to Tarc, when a momentary impulse has him looking behind to where Yala was walking.

Operative word being 'was'. She's not there now. He doesn't know exactly how long it's been—minutes?— because he'd been distracted with Tarc.

Din has taken stims a couple of times in his life, on long missions where the only way to run down a target was to just keep going long beyond the limits of human endurance. This feels like three doses of stims hitting him all in a single second. He can hear his heart pounding doubletime.

"Did she stop at a stall?" Tarc asks, more sensibly than Din particularly wants to hear right now. Most of the stalls are shielded by cloth against the sun. Some of them even have entrance curtains. He hopes that Yala has more sense than to go into one of those without alerting him first… At the same time, he hopes she doesn't. That she's in there somewhere, looking at wares, perfectly fine. That she just got distracted.

He just can't believe that right now. All his mind can supply are images of her broken body dumped somewhere and Kuiil'ika back in the hands of the Imperials.

"Take that side," he snaps, pointing Tarc to the right. "Look in _every_ stall."

The market is crowded, but people scatter before him as he stalks over to the first stall on the left. He nearly rips off the curtain in his urgency, and the vendor begins to shout curses before he takes in Din in his armour and with his weapons, and abruptly backs down. Din stalks in and looks behind the table of wares, lifts the cloth hanging in front of it, just in case she's tied up (or worse) under there. She's not, and he stalks out without a word.

He repeats that same process. Barge into a stall. Look everywhere while vendors back away from him worriedly, or try to ask him what he's looking for.

Fuck, he's not sure how long it's been, they could be offworld by now, or dead, or tied up and terrified and desperate for him to find them, what if he _fails—_

It feels like an endless stretch of time, an impossible amount of stalls, an unending stream of horrific mental images about what could be happening.

Then suddenly she's just— _there_.

Yala is sitting in the little seating area of one of the tea stalls, talking to somebody. She jumps up startled at his sudden entrance. She looks fine, she's got Kuiil'ika in his sling, her arm protectively wrapped around the baby, He's fine, they're fine.

Din can hear his breath rasp through the modulator, and everything feels very far away.

"What the _fuck_ were you thinking," he snaps, heart still pounding in his throat.

She opens her mouth and he wants her to—he wants her to reply, to shout, to explain herself, to do _something_ that matches the all-consuming mix of adrenaline, fear and anger in him. His hands clench into fists with the urge to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.

Her eyes flick down to his hands and she closes her mouth and takes a step back.

Some ugly feeling rises in his throat. He just spent a frantic eternity fearing what the Imperials might be doing to her, his clothes feel drenched with the sweat of terror, and she's acting like _he_ is the monster for worrying? Does she have _any_ idea what—

—Fuck, he doesn't— He can't—this is not—

Din huffs out a harsh breath, blowing out his voice modulator, and steps back a few paces, until his pack brushes the entrance curtain.

"Tarc," he radioes. "Yellow-brown tea tent, now."

It only takes a moment for the young man to come in, and when he sees Yala and the baby he bursts out a relieved "Oh! Found them, that's good. Are you two okay?"

"Escort them to the ship," Din interrupts curtly, turning and leaving the tent before the burning, churning mess of adrenaline and terror and some undefined emotion in his chest can, can _discharge_. Before he says and does things he can't take back. He needs to _move_ , to work off some of the adrenaline.

Thankfully the edge of town isn't far away, and he strides out into the lava flats. What he wants to do is shoot something. Shoot a whole bunch of things. Until his heart has refound its usual pace and his skin no longer feels like it's too tight for his body. Luckily there's plenty of open space here.

* * *

It's a couple of hours before he feels calm enough to leave the makeshift shooting range and return to the Razor Crest. Drained, tired, but calm. Tarc is in the cockpit, playing with an apparently unaffected Kuiil'ika. There's a bowl with pieces of sweet bread that they're sharing.

Din lifts his son into his arms to hold him close for a moment, covering his little body with his whole hand to feel him breathe. The kid shoves his toy frog at Din's helmet and chortles.

"Yala?" he asks Tarc.

"Cargo bay." Tarc sounds… carefully toneless. Like he's judging Din for the way he handled this. Well, Din is judging himself for it already, so.

He lightly presses his helmet's forehead against his son's forehead for a moment, and then hands him back to Tarc.

When he shoves aside the entrance curtain to the cargo bay Yala's head jerks up. She's sitting on the deck with her clinic crate, sorting through little bottles from the looks of it.

"I'm _sorry_ ," she says, grimacing. He takes a step into the space and she drops the bottles into a box, closing it with a snap. She looks like she wants to scramble to her feet; he doesn't miss the way her glance flickers to his hands. Din halts immediately, his heart clenching painfully. No wonder Tarc is judging him.

 _Fuck_ , he's fucked this up.

He pulls off his helmet so that she can see that he's not angry, and sets it down beside the entrance.

Seeing his face helps, immediately makes her body more relaxed. She doesn't look like she wants to hurry to her feet anymore now, so he goes to kneel down with her and wordlessly opens his arms, inviting her in for an embrace. Her breath hitches when she moves into his arms.

"I didn't mean to worry you," she whispers against his shoulder, at the same moment he says,

"I'm sorry."

It doesn't feel like enough.

"I panicked," he confesses into her hair. "I was afraid for you and for Ad'ika. I shouldn't have…"

Her arms tighten around him, and she buries her face into the folds of his cloak at his neck.

"See, this is why pair bonds aren't as good as Dalu marriages," she murmurs. "You need another person to take turns staying with me and Kuiil'ika. We're a full-time task."

He huffs a laugh, the relief of hearing her make a joke, no matter how weak, making his head feel light.

"I'm beginning to see the sense of it."

From what she's said about it, the structure of the families she grew up with was a mix of friendship and romantic bonds, and professional skillsets. Exclusive pair bonds exist within that structure, but they're not the norm. If somebody is an excellent mechanic and you get on well with them, you try to get them on your crew. The goal is to have a family that can support itself, any children, and keep a ship flying and prospering.

The Mandalorian way of romantic love is almost exclusively centered around bonded pairs and their children. Her crew-families sound alien to him--plus the concept of sharing somebody's affection is hard to swallow--but in the traditional Mandalorian setup, a couple had a clan around them to support them in raising their children.

In the situation they find themselves in now, and especially in Din's travelling life, he really is beginning to see the sense in having more than two adults to their little family. Two warriors to a caretaker sounds a lot more bearable to his nerves, even if his heart aches at the thought.

"Have you eaten anything?"

He's pretty sure that muffled 'mfffh' noise she makes means no, and he knows how drained he himself feels. He eases her back, looking into her eyes for a moment, and kisses her forehead.

"I'll be right back."

He hesitates over his helmet, leaving the cargo bay. But Tarc is in the cockpit and likely won't see him…. And Din can't ask the children of the tribe to change if he isn't willing to show the way, himself. It takes a moment to push himself into action, nonetheless.

He sets a meal to heat for all four their dinner later, and cuts up a sweet breadroll to share with Yala for now.

Tarc doesn't see him.

Din and Yala settle down next to each other on her bunk, backs against the bulkhead. He tries not to think about the last time she sat like that. That's not where he needs his brain right now.

"So, the person I talked to in the market…" Yala sounds more lively now she's eaten something.

It takes him long moments to remember that she went into that tea stall to talk to somebody, not just to look at wares.

"Hmm?" He stretches his legs, boots kicked off but still in his armour. Should have taken a moment to shed the plates, but he's not going to dislodge Yala now. She's leaning against him, curled close under his arm with her head against his shoulder.

"She said she spoke for the Mandalorians—"

"What?" Had that been Alor? Surely not?

"She said she spoke for the Mandalorians who had taken off their beskar'gam in the attack on your tribe," Yala finished. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if she herself was once also part of the tribe."

Din jolts with the thought. He's considered this before, hasn't he? That there might be people here of the tribe, people who took off their armour to survive the raid, to melt away in the crowd.

"What did she say?"

"It was all very... " Yala handwaves a little. "Neither of us wanted to say too much. I was worried she was a spy, so I didn't want to confirm that there were survivors apart from you and Tarc."

Din hums, wanting to know more.

"I think she talked to me because it was less intimidating."

No surprise there. Everybody talks to Yala before they talk to Din, if they have the choice. He tries not to feel stung by the understanding that that even extends to his tribemates. Former tribesmates.

"And I think maybe she was trying to find out if you'd consider the people she spoke for _dar'manda._ "

He draw a sharp breath, because—

Because he _would_ have. They _all_ would have.

How had he never seen before how destructive that idea was, that simply the act of taking off the helmet would erase one's entire identity as part of the tribe, part of the culture? That taking it off in an emergency meant immediate exclusion from the tribe in a moment when community was needed more than ever?

Din hadn't even really been thinking about his tribe, when he'd told IG-11 to leave his helmet on and let him die. The judgement had settled that deeply into his mind. He wouldn't even have bothered to go back to the tribe to be judged. He would have died. All for nothing.

Now Paz was trying to be an entire tribe to a bunch of kids while they have survivors floating around here, people they badly needed, convinced they were now dar'manda.

He wonders how many there are, if there is a whole community of former tribesfolk, helping each other along into a life outside. He wonders who this person was, if it was somebody he used to know. Very likely.

"Can you find her again? Do you think she'd talk to me?"

Yala hums, considering. "She owns the tea stall, she's probably still on the market. And if I go with you, probably."

Din hesitates for a long moment. He did not make a good or approachable impression there today—sending Yala with Tarc to deliver a message might go smoothest. On the other hand, if he's speaking for the tribe here, and that's an odd feeling given how little time he's historically spent with the tribe, then he should be the one to speak for it.

"Will you go back out with me now? The market will close soon."

It is in fact already mostly gone, stalls packed up, tents being dismantled. Merchants loading up the last of their wares on handcarts. Din sighs, discouraged. He wants to ask this woman if she'll arrange for him to meet the other Mandalorians she knows of. If he can't ask her before the next market day, that would take a long time to arrange.

Suddenly Yala takes his hand, twining her fingers with his, and he looks around to see what prompted that. She knows he prefers not to show their relationship that obviously in public. The thought of putting a target on her back—a bigger target than just being known as his companion—makes him uneasy. Then he sees a woman watching them.

He vaguely recognises her as the person Yala was talking to when he found her earlier, but he hadn't exactly been paying a lot of attention to her at the time.

He supposes that with the impression he made earlier today, Yala showing that they are on good terms again can only help.

"Came to talk to me?" she says. She puts down her loaded handcart.

"Hi! Yes, he," Yala steps aside so Din is face to face with the woman, "would like to talk to you."

"Beroya," she nods at him, and Din does his best. He's never seen her face before, obviously, but her voice is familiar. She's in her early thirties maybe. Has clearly been out of the tribe for a while, for her to have her own business. He tries to remember who they lost along the way that wasn't killed.

"Saani?" he finally ventures.

She makes a 'not bad' kind of face.

"Are you well?" he asks.

"I feel like I should be the one asking you that," she says with a head tilt. "Last I heard you disappeared amidst an Imperial invasion."

"I am well," he nods, trying not to be impatient about coming to the point.

"And the rest of the tribe?"

"Those left are safe with Vizla. Yala mentioned that you are in contact with some of our people?"

"Are they? Your people?" she asks sceptically.

"Yes. If they still wish to be."

"Didn't used to be like that," Saani says sharply. "I stopped being your people when I married an _aruetii_ who did not want to become Mandalorian."

"I'm sorry," he says simply, because he was rarely with the tribe over the past decade and never in charge of the decisions, but that doesn't change anything for her. "We are changing, as we should have long ago. And we need people to survive. If you know of any who would like to join the tribe in the new covert…"

She sighs, fingers plucking at a roll of canvas on her cart.

"Yes," she finally decides. "My tea stand is on the other side of town tomorrow. Come not long after dawn."

"Thank you. I will be there."

"Best buy some tea, while you're at it."

* * *

Din looks around the tent. There are five people there, beside Yala and Saani. Two are heavily robed and veiled, one type of full-body coverage traded for another. The others are dressed more plainly, not identifiable as Mandalorians, as tribe members in any way except that he knows their voices, their speech patterns, the way they move.

There's a man in rough day workers clothes, long black hair and a strong, handsome face with a beaked nose. Din blinks to recognise him as Fyor.

The other man in similar clothes has close cropped sandy coloured hair and pale blue eyes. Din isn't sure until the man starts to pace; then it is very obviously Yelt by the way he moves.

Rhyrr is dressed plainly, in clothes that might have been Saani's once. Her hair is loose, falling about her shoulders.

The two heavily robed people turn out to be Noski and Saeme.

Din checks again if the tent is closed, and Yala takes the cue; she and Saani slip out. Tarc is keeping watch outside. This is it. He knows what he needs to do, but that doesn't make it less daunting. He'd already decided he could do this with his aliit, already showed Yala and Kuiil'ika his face. He'd stretched his definition to include Tarc while he travelled with them. Paz has done far more, has gone helmetless with outsiders, because it was either that or letting the children go hungry.

They will not reject each other for these things. They are still Mandalorians. Their identity is not, _can_ not, be in their helmets. It _must_ be within the person.

And strange and uneasy as it is after having been away from the tribe for most of his adult life, he is the closest thing to an Alor there is right now. It is down to him to say these things and to make these decisions.

"It is good to see you alive," he addresses the five. Then he reaches up to unseal the helmet, takes a deep breath and—

The delicate scents of the nearby bags of tea curl pleasantly into his nose.

They stare at him in astonishment.

"Please come with me to our new refuge," he tells them, barefaced. This is as exposed as he's ever felt, but he must, he _must_ convince them that he sees them as Mandalorians same as himself. That the culture of their tribe must change, has already done so. " _Verd ori'shya beskar'gam_ —a warrior is more than their armour. It was long past time that we saw that. Your help is sorely needed."

It thankfully doesn't take that much to convince the five of them to come to the new covert. Since Din intends to go find Drijak first and the Razor Crest really isn't set up for seven people and a small child, it's agreed that he will come by Nevarro again on the way back to pick them up.

"If it's only a couple of days, we can wait. In the meantime, if Alor is still on Nevarro, we will find her and convince her to come," Fyor says.

Din puts them in touch with Cara and hopes for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> Toss a review to your writer, oh readers of plenty... 
> 
> [Hey look I'm on tumblr! Come talk to me about this story and ask me questions!](https://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/)


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